Dawn in Eclipse Bay

chapter 7

The storm crashed ashore shortly after ten o’clock. Time to go, Lillian thought. The edgy intimacy that had been thickening the atmosphere all evening was getting to her. She could no longer ignore the vibes. If she hung around any longer she might embarrass herself by making a pass at Gabe.

She put down her cards. “Gin.”

“Damn. Not again.” Gabe tossed his cards onto the cushion between them. He sprawled against the back of the sofa and regarded her with a malevolent expression. “Didn’t realize you were the competitive type.”

“I’m a Harte, remember? We’re all competitive in some ways. Besides, it was your idea to play gin rummy.”

“I wasn’t concentrating. Had my mind on other things.”

“Yeah, sure. They all say that when they lose to me.” She looked out the window into the heavy darkness. “I’d better be on my way. That rain is going to get worse before it gets better.”

He uncoiled from the depths of the sagging sofa. “I’ll drive you back to your cottage.”

He didn’t have to sound quite so eager to get rid of her, she thought. But it was probably for the best. At least his mood seemed lighter now. Her mission of mercy was accomplished.

“Thanks.” She rose quickly, a sense of urgency pulsing through her.

She had left it too long, she thought. It waspast time to leave. She was not sure when or how it had happened but she was suddenly, intensely aware of the heavy blanket of sensual awareness that enveloped her. It had settled around her slowly and lightly over the course of the evening, the warm, thick folds practically weightless until now.

She wondered if Gabe felt anything at all. If he did, he was doing a terrific job of concealing it.

He was already at the door, her rain cloak in his hand. Obviously she was the only one who could feel the energy of the storm gathering here inside this room.

The smartest thing she could do tonight was leave right now and go straight home to her own bed.

She touched the back of a chair briefly to steady herself, took a deep breath and walked deliberately toward him.

“One thing I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said when she reached the place where he waited with her cloak.

She turned her back to him so that he could help her into the garment. “What’s that?”

“Did you invite yourself over here tonight just because you thought I needed cheering up or did you have something else in mind?”

She froze, her hands slightly raised to take the edges of the cloak from him.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the neighborly gesture,” he said.

“We were both at loose ends this evening.” She was irritated now. “And weare neighbors. Sort of. And you did seem a little moody this morning. Dinner together sounded reasonable. If you’ve got a problem with that, I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Ouch. You’ve got teeth, don’t you?”

“I’m a Harte.”

“Right. I just wanted to let you know that I don’t need any do-gooder nurturing. I’d much rather you had another agenda.”

He draped the cloak around her shoulders. When he was finished he did not release her and step back. Instead he stayed there, so close that she could feel the heat of his body. He rested his hands on her, letting her feel the weight and strength of them.

“Another agenda?” She twitched the cloak into place, fussing with it a bit to cover her awkwardness. “Such as exploring various strategies we can use to help A.Z. prove that a secret government agency is planning to move frozen space aliens into the institute?”

He tightened his hands on her shoulders. “I was thinking more along the lines of you seducing me.”

She opened her mouth. And closed it immediately when she realized she did not know what to say.

“You know, just to help lift my mood.” His voice roughened a little. Getting dangerous. “Wouldn’t be too much different from inviting yourself over for dinner so that I wouldn’t be alone. Just another little act of charity.”

“I already gave at the office.”

“So much for small acts of random kindness.”

His lifted her hair aside and kissed the nape of her neck. Electricity went down her spine. The room dissolved into a thousand different hues. She was inside the rainbow.

“Gabe.”

“And here I thought you felt sorry for me,” he said against her nape. “I thought you were genuinely concerned about my burnout problem.”

“Look, Gabe-”

“Got another question for you,” he said.

“Forget it.”

“Can’t. It’s been eating at me for weeks. I’ve got to know. Did you ever fill out one of your own questionnaires and run it through your computer program to see if you could find the perfect match for yourself?”

The question blindsided her. It caught her up with the force of a heavy wave, sweeping her off her feet and roiling her senses. She pulled herself together with an effort.

“You’re very chatty all of a sudden, aren’t you?” she muttered.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

She felt the heat rise in her face.Damn. “I don’t owe you any answers.”

“Ah. So youdid try to match yourself. I had a hunch you might have done it. Who could resist? There you were with your program and all those potential dates. What happened? No good candidates on your list of clients? Hard to believe.”

“I told you,” she whispered, “the program is not foolproof.”

“Maybe not, but it’s got a very high degree of accuracy. You assured me of that when I signed on. What went wrong? Didn’t like the matches it selected for you?”

She put out her hand and closed her fingers around the doorknob. “Take me home, Gabe.”

“Or did you lose your nerve? It’s one thing to use intuition and the results of a questionnaire to help other people make a decision that will affect them for a lifetime.” He turned her slowly around to face him. “It’s another thing altogether to use them to make a choice that will affect your own life.”

“Gabe-”

“Maybe your mistake was in looking too far ahead,” he said softly. “Hell, maybe I was making the same mistake. Maybe we should both stop obsessing on the long term and focus more on the short term.”

She swallowed. “How short a term are we talking about here?”

“Let’s start with tonight.” He kissed her throat. “We’ll reassess matters in the morning.”

She stiffened. “I don’t do one-night time frames.”

“There you go, trying to think too far ahead again.”

“Goading me will not work,” she said. “I do not respond to taunts or dares.”

“Of course you don’t. You’re a Harte.” He leaned his forehead against hers. His thumb moved along the line of her jaw. “Whatwill work?”

She took a deep breath, inhaled some of the dancing storm energy that swirled around them and used it to fortify herself.

“You have to admit that you cheated on the Private Arrangements questionnaire,” she said.

“What the hell does that damned questionnaire have to do with what’s happening between us?”

“I ran the one you filled out through my program. Compared it with one that I had filled out on myself. If you were completely honest in all your responses on that form, I have to tell you that we are definitely not a good match, Gabe. Not even in the short term.”

For the space of two or three heartbeats, he went utterly motionless.

“And if I did shade some of the answers?” he asked.

“Then the conclusions were invalid, of course.”

He smiled slowly. “I lied through my teeth on most of them.”

She touched the tip of her tongue to her lower lip. “Honest?”

“I swear it on my honor as a Madison,” he said against her mouth.

“Iknew it.” Satisfaction unfurled within her. She put both arms around his neck. “I was sure of it. Even the one about-?”

His mouth closed on hers before she could finish the question. He kissed her, long and hard and deep; so deep that she forgot everything else.

The colors of the rainbow that surrounded her grew brighter, becoming almost painfully intense. She had to close her eyes against the shattering brilliance.

She kissed Gabe back, full on his warm, hard, incredibly sexy mouth. She gave it everything she had, moving into the moment the way she did when she was painting all out; flying with the vision, trying to get it down on the canvas before it evaporated.

Rain pounded on the roof of the cottage. Wind lashed at the windows. Electricity arced in the atmosphere. The night was alive and so was she.

She was vaguely aware of the rain cloak sliding off her shoulders. And then she realized that her feet no longer touched the floor. Gabe had picked her up in his arms.

She turned her face against his chest, savoring the scent of his body and the strength of his arms. She spread the fingers of one hand across the expanse of his chest. Beneath the fabric of his pullover, he was hard and sleek.

He carried her into the cottage’s tiny bedroom and tumbled her down onto the old-fashioned four-poster. Her shoes thudded softly on the old rug. He straightened, peeled off his pullover in a single, sweeping motion and tossed it carelessly aside. It caught on a bedpost.

He never took his eyes off her as he stripped off his trousers and briefs. His hands were quick and ruthlessly efficient. The sight of his heavily aroused body elicited an immediate reaction far inside her. She was suddenly aware of a liquid heat pooling in her lower body.

He paused long enough to open a drawer in the nightstand. She heard foil tear in the darkness.

And then he was on the quilt with her, looming over her, caging her between his arms. The ancient bed squeaked beneath his weight. If she had tried to sketch him at that moment, she knew the result would have been a picture composed of dark light, strong shadows, and fathomless pools of mystery.

He tugged the tunic off over her head. Unfastened the satin bra. Excitement sent another flood of brilliant colors through her when he touched her breasts. She could hardly breathe. All of her senses sharpened and focused.

Gabe slid one leg between her thighs. He shifted his mouth back to hers in a heavy, drugging kiss.

She gripped his shoulders, digging her fingers into his bare skin. His hard body cut off what little light came through the doorway from the main room. She could hear the storm swirling outside the cottage, weaving a magic force field that held the rest of the world at bay. At least for now.

His hands moved on her again. Her trousers disappeared. They were soon followed by her panties.

He moved his hand across her stomach and down to the place where she was hot and wet and full. He stroked her as if he were now the painter, applying colors with lavish passion and precision. Getting into his art.

She wanted to tell him to slow down. She needed time to adjust to this unfamiliar level of raw, physical sensation; time to savor the sweep and nuance of the hues of this amazing rainbow.

But time was out of her control, along with everything else tonight. When he found her again with his fingers, she screamed. It was too much.

Her body clenched violently. The rainbow pulsed. Neon brights, effervescent blues and glorious, eye-searing reds filled the shadows with light. She could not think; could not sort out impressions or emotions.

He surged into her at that moment, spilling a whole new palette across the canvas. These were the mysterious, unnamable hues that she had seen only in her dreams.

She felt the rigid tension in the muscles and bone beneath his skin and knew that he was no longer in control either. His release crashed through both of them.

The first thing she noticed when she awoke a long time later was that she could not move. Gabe had her pinned to the bed with one heavy arm wrapped around her midsection and a muscular leg thrown across her thigh.

The second thing she became aware of was that the storm winds had died down. She could still hear gentle rain on the roof, and the darkness on the other side of the window remained immutable. But the world outside was a much quieter, calmer place than it had been earlier.

She lay still, partly because she knew that if she tried to move she would awaken Gabe and she was not at all certain she wanted to do that. Not yet, at any rate. She had things to think about and she needed to think without distractions.

Now that the chaos of passion had resolved itself, the first thing she ought to do was take a cold, hard look at what had happened between herself and Gabe. Life had suddenly become extremely complicated.

But she could not bring herself to focus just yet on her new problems. First she would allow herself the pleasure of absorbing the myriad impressions she had not been able to catalog and enjoy in the heat and turmoil of what had happened earlier. She was entitled.

Memories and impressions stirred her senses. Sex with Gabe had been as disorienting, thrilling, and ultimately as disturbing as that flash of recognition that sometimes struck while she was in the process of trying to translate a vision onto a canvas. In those rare moments of acute awareness she couldsee the whole picture in her mind. But the images came so swiftly, so relentlessly, that it was impossible to paint fast enough to keep up with them. She had learned to concentrate on the critical elements, the core of the vision, knowing that she could go back later to fill in the less essential parts.

Now she tried to do just that, calling up the little details that she had missed during the passionate encounter. The way his fingers had closed around her thigh. The way his teeth had grazed a nipple. The way his tongue-

“You awake?” Gabe asked.

“Yes.”

He shifted a little, settling her more comfortably into the curve of his body. “What are you thinking about?”

She smiled into the pillow and said nothing.

He nibbled gently on her shoulder. “Tell me.”

“I was just wondering why you lied on the Private Arrangements questionnaire.”

“Can’t let it go, can you?”

“Nope.”

“Going to throw it in my face again and again, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, why do you think I lied?”

She propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at him, trying to read his expression in the shadows. Impossible. “I think you fiddled with the responses because subconsciously you didn’t want me to find you a perfect match. You set things up so that failure was the only option.”

“Huh. Why the hell would I do that after paying you all that money for some good matches?”

She put her hand on his bare chest. “Probably because, when crunch time came, your Madison genes just couldn’t tolerate the idea of applying such a sensible, logical, rational approach to an intimate relationship with a woman.”

“Screwed by my genetic predisposition to do things the hard way, you think?”

She drew her fingertips through the crisp, curling hair. “Madisons are known for doing things the hard way.”

“True.” He stroked the curve of her head. “There’s just one point I want to make before we get up in a few hours and fix breakfast.”

“And your point is?”

“Tonight does not qualify as my sixth date.”

For an instant, she did not understand. Then the meaning of his words shot through her brain, charring the semi-dream state she had been enjoying.

She sat bolt upright. His arm slid down to her hips. Aware that she was nude, she grabbed the sheets and held them to her breasts.

“I’ve got news for you,” she said, “we had dinner and sex. If that doesn’t qualify as a date in your book, I’d like to know what does. It’s certainly a heck of a lot more than any of my other dates have involved in a very long time.”

“You came over here tonight because you felt sorry for me, remember? Being neighborly doesn’t qualify as a date.”

Anger, pain, and outrage slammed through her without warning. She found herself teetering on an invisible emotional cliff that she had not even noticed a few seconds ago.

“I certainly didn’t sleep with you just to jolly you out of your brooding mood.”

“It worked, though.” He closed his palm around her hip, squeezing gently. “I’m feeling a lot more cheerful than I did earlier.”

“Damn it, Gabe, don’t you dare imply that having sex was no different than… than playing gin rummy together. One is a game. The other is not.”

There was a short silence. Was he actually having to think about her comment? She went cold. Maybe he didn’t believe that there was any major difference between sex and gin rummy. Maybe to him they both ranked as nothing more than casual pastimes.

Maybe she had been a complete fool.

“One is a game, the other is not,” Gabe repeated very deliberately. “This is a test, right?”

“Yes,” she said through her teeth. “And if you get it wrong, you’re a doomed man.”

“Okay, okay, just give me a minute.” He sounded as serious and intent as a game show contestant who had a hundred thousand dollars riding on the outcome. “One is a game. The other is not. One is a game. The other-”

“Gabe, so help me-”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

There was an odd ringing in her ears now. Surely she could not have been dumb enough to go to bed with a man who treated sex as entertainment for a rainy night in a small town where there was very little in the way of nightlife. She could not have misjudged Gabe Madison so badly. She was a professional matchmaker, for heaven’s sake.

He moved his warm palm up over her hip, along the curve of her waist, and pulled her down across his chest. One of her legs lodged between his thighs. She felt a familiar pressure and knew that he was getting hard again.

He cupped her buttock in one hand. “I’m ready.”

The sensual laughter in his voice jolted her back to reality. He was teasing her. She was overreacting. Time to get a grip. Act mature and sophisticated.

With an act of will she forced herself to step back from the invisible emotional precipice. Her ears stopped ringing. She took a deep breath and managed a cool smile.

“I’m waiting for your answer,” she said.

“Gin rummy is the game, right?”

“Congratulations. Right answer.”

He slipped his fingertips along the rim of the cleavage that divided her derrière. Without warning, he rolled her onto her back and came down on top of her.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she whispered.

“Collecting my prize.”

A long time later she stirred again and leaned over him.

“You know,” she said, “there was another reason I decided to stay tonight.”

He smiled in the darkness. His hand moved in her hair.

“What was that?” he asked.

“I was curious to see what you do with the peanut butter.”

“I’ll show you.”

“Now?”

“This is as good a time as any. I seem to have worked up an appetite.”