inside the room and went with her, closing the door firmly behind him.
She stared up at him helplessly. She hadn’t meant to invite him in; she hadn’t wanted to be so alone with him. But it was going to be impossible to throw him out. And apparently he was determined to get an answer.
“Was there a man, Nikki?” he persisted gently, following her as she went into the room with its neatly made double bed, and onto the small balcony overlooking the bay and the beach.
“Yes,” she said with a heavy sigh, leaning on the wrought iron railing. “It seems like a hundred years ago now, but yes, there was. Ralley was my fiancé. We’d already sent out the wedding invitations and my friends had given me a shower for the household items when Ralley and Leda eloped and got married across the state line.” She smiled sadly. “I did so want them to get along. Leda was my best friend, and it was important to me that they liked each other. Well, they sure did.” She laughed, resorting to humor. “They just went a little overboard.”
He didn’t say anything, but she felt him behind her, felt the warmth of his big body against her back.
“Leda was the one who died in the flood?” he asked after a minute.
She nodded. The wrought iron felt cold and steely under her nervous hands. Being alone with him like this was devastatingly new. Always before there had been people around. But now there were no prying eyes at all.
“Where is the man now?” he asked, moving closer. She felt, with a shock of pleasure, his big hands clasping her waist to bring her back against him.
“He, uh, he lives in a town about fifty miles away from Ashton,” she stammered. She felt his warm breath touching her hair, breathed the clean scent of him mingling with the elusive fragrances of his expensive cologne and her light perfume.
His lips touched the side of her neck, running down it to her bare shoulder, where the tiny spaghetti straps held up the blouson bodice of the gown. His dark hair was cool where it touched her face, his mouth was warm and slow and its effect was unexpected.
She turned involuntarily to look up at him, the night sounds of surf and song and voices far away drifted nearby like something from a fantasy while she stared into his eyes and found the missing pieces of her own soul.
“You have the most extraordinary eyes,” he murmured absently, scowling. “Just when I think I’ve got the color figured out, they change. They were emerald, now they’re aquamarine.”
She smiled softly. “Yours don’t change. They’re very dark.” The smile faded. “Sometimes they’re haunted.”
“I know.” He drew in a deep breath. “I carry my ghosts around with me.” His hands moved up to cup her face, warming it, caressing it. “Are you a sorceress, Nikki? Can you exorcise them?”
Her nervous fingers reached up to touch, hesitantly, that hard, square jaw, the shadow where the corner of his chiseled mouth began, the imposing line of his nose. He let her touch him, standing quietly, rigidly, as if she were some small animal creeping up to him, and he was doing his best not to frighten it away. Her fingertips found his high cheekbones, his broad forehead, the silky, heavy brows above his deep-set eyes. Then they drew down the rigid muscles of his cheeks and drew across his warm, firm lips with a slow, whispering touch.
“Are you sculpting me?” he whispered softly.
She shook her head. “Just a low-budget safari,” she whispered gently. “It’s rugged territory, very dangerous.”
“It must be, the way you were touching it.” His big fingers speared through the hair at the sides of her head and tilted her face up. “Don’t ever be nervous about touching me,” he murmured, his eyes solemn.
“You don’t seem like the kind of man who’d enjoy it,” she said. “I mean, being touched by everyone.”
“I don’t,” he admitted. “But, Nikki, I like it very much when I’m making love to a woman,” he whispered at her lips, brushing across hers with his own in a slow, rocking, faintly sensuous motion while his big hands kept her face exactly where he wanted it. “I like being touched, and kissed, and...needed. Don’t you?”
She felt the slow, nibbling movements of his lips with an ache that sat up and wailed inside her, coaxing her arms to reach up and hold him, her lips to part and invite