Cravings (30 page)

HE might have a death wish, but there was enough reason left in Grant's brain
to make him stop in his tracks and raise his hands. He knew that voice. It was
Scott Wright, and he knew the guy could blow him away if he made the wrong move.

"What do you know about this clothing on the beach?" the officer asked in a
grating voice as though he were confronting a suspect who had returned to the
scene of the crime.

If he hadn't been standing with his hands in the air, he would have smacked
himself on the forehead.

"That's my stuff," he finally said. "I was swimming." Carefully he shifted
one of his arms so that it partially blocked the light shining in his eyes.

"Swimming? In this weather?" Wright demanded.

"I like a nice cold dip in the ocean."

"So why are you dressed now?"

"A big dog scared me off," he said, keeping his tone even, wondering if
Officer Wright had been the man in the car with its lights off. "I got the hell
out of here—then came back for my stuff," he added.

The light lowered, as though Wright accepted the dog story without question.
Interesting.

"Mind if I take my belongings?" Grant asked, cautiously bringing his hands to
a more normal position, then reaching to pick up the clothing he'd discarded
earlier.

The cop fixed him with a displeased look. "Why are you still hanging around
town?"

"I told you. I'm looking for property where I can build a house."

"I think you're up to something else."

Grant turned his free palm up. "Like what?"

"You tell me."

"There's nothing to tell."

They stood confronting each other for heartbeats. Finally he asked, "Is it
okay if I take my clothes home?"

Wright kept him waiting, then finally muttered, "Go ahead."

Picking up his belongings, Grant shook out some of the sand and rolled the
items into a ball in his arms. Then he turned and left, feeling the cop's eyes
on him as he walked toward the road. He kept imagining the impact of a bullet
hitting his back, but Officer Wright let him go—for now.

 

ANTONIA sat in the darkness, trying to ignore the hot, aching sensations
pulsing through her. But pretending nothing had happened was impossible because
every cell of her body still throbbed with the aftershocks of Grant's touch.

It had been a long time since a man had reached for her with sexual intent.
Well, excluding Scott Wright. He had put his hands where they didn't belong. He
had played games with the blind woman because she couldn't see what he was
doing.

She would never label the encounter with Grant as play. When he'd touched
her, something strong and scorching had leaped between them. Something they had
both felt.

Raising her hand, she slid her fingers lightly against her lips, bringing
back the sensuality of his kiss.

She had thought she understood passion. She knew now that nothing had
prepared her for the wild, out-of-control ardor she had felt in Grant's arms.
Still felt, because there was nothing she could do for herself that would come
close to satisfying the all-consuming need he had aroused. She ached for sexual
release. It was all she could do to keep from sliding her hand down her body, to
the throbbing place between her legs. It wouldn't take much to push herself over
the edge. But she knew that masturbation would be a pale substitute for what she
craved.

Her mind and body still rocked with needs she hadn't known existed. And she
knew it had been as powerful for Grant, knew it from the way he had devoured her
whole, then wrenched himself away and fled into the night.

When she had some control over the sensations clamoring inside her body,
Antonia reached for the pack of cards on the table and began to shuffle them.

They had been at her side for years, and handling them brought her a measure
of calm. At first, she simply shuffled them, letting the hard rectangles slide
against her skin. Then she went through the deck more slowly, stroking the
corner of each card, reading the name. Usually every one brought her a vivid
image. This evening, the pictures barely registered in her brain.

All she knew was that the wolf was gone from the cards because he didn't need
to be there anymore.

He had come to Sea Gate—in person. And, again, she knew she should be
frightened. Any normal woman would be.

Well, not any woman. He had been married to someone else—someone who had
gotten past the fear of a man who could change himself into a wolf.

Or was that the wrong assumption, she suddenly wondered. Had he been married
to someone who was like himself—able to change into a wolf whenever she wanted?

She longed to know the answer to that question. She had to know if the only
woman he would consider for a mate was like him.

A shaky laugh bubbled from her throat. She was certainly getting ahead of
herself here. She should be running away from the man. Instead, she was worried
about how she would cope if he walked away from her.

Would he?

Fanning out the deck, she reached for one of the cards, pulled it out, and
laid it on the table.

There were many ways to do a reading. For a client, she might lay out a
Celtic cross, the most common pattern. For herself she preferred to simply turn
over individual cards.

Five years ago, she had asked questions about her life and gotten answers
that had turned out to be true.

Would she regain her sight? The cards had told her that was unlikely. They
had also reassured her that she would be able to make a life for herself despite
her handicap. They had said she was well rid of her fiancé, Billy Raider.

He wasn't the right man for her. But she'd known that as soon as he'd started
worrying about how he was going to cope with a woman losing her vision.

Still, it had taken her months to get over her hurt and anger. Conversely, it
had taken her only hours to know that Grant Marshall was more important to her
than any man she had met before him.

Or was she making that up because she wanted it to be true?

Her own sense of confusion made her pulse pound as she stroked her finger
gently against the ten of Swords. The card showed a graphic picture of a dead
man lying on a desolate plain, ten swords sticking upright in his back.

She grimaced. He represented the effects of war and strife and by extension
major trauma in someone's life. It wasn't hard to get that from the image. But
the extent of the card's meaning was unclear to her now. The picture could
signify a deep sense of loss. Her own? Or Grant's? But it could also mean a
cycle in her life or his had come to an end—which implied a new beginning. She
wanted that to be true. But she couldn't force her own meaning on the card. And
as she sat fingering the raised braille dots, she knew it was impossible to
decide what the image meant.

Frustrated, she turned over another card, then felt a shiver go through her
when she realized it was the nine of Swords. It wasn't a card she usually got.
Which said something about her present circumstances all by itself.

The picture showed a woman sitting in bed, hiding her face in her hands,
probably crying. It represented loss of hope, depression, bad dreams,
desperation.

"Oh great," she muttered.

If someone else had gotten that card, she'd think that they needed medical or
legal help. At the very least, she would assume the woman was in big trouble.

But maybe that was just her view of the situation—not reality, she added,
trying to make herself feel better and succeeding only marginally.

She turned over another card. The six of Wands—a horseman wearing a laurel
wreath on his head and coming home to victory. That was better. The card could
herald upcoming good news. Or guests arriving.

Well, her guest had already arrived. The question was, would he stay?

More possibilities turned themselves around in her head. The card could
predict a journey. Did that mean Grant was leaving?

Her thoughts were in too much turmoil to give a clean interpretation of
anything.

"Have you fallen completely apart?" she whispered, hearing the tears in her
voice.

In frustration, she clenched her hand around the deck, thinking about
throwing it across the room. What stopped her was the image of herself crawling
around on the floor trying to find all the cards.

Instead, she sat where she was, clenching and unclenching her hands, her
thoughts going back to Grant.

He had lost his wife, and he had focused all his energies on finding her
killer.

He had made no plans for himself beyond that. He had wanted nothing more than
the satisfaction of ripping out the throat of the man who had robbed him of his
reason for living.

But when they'd kissed and touched, she had reminded him that he was still
living and breathing, and that had shaken him. Probably it had also made him
angry—at her and at himself.

Angry enough to make him walk out on her?

She had only met him a few hours ago. Yet fear of his loss clawed at her
insides.

 

GRANT'S feet carried him toward Antonia's house. He walked slowly now, trying
to reach back into the past of a few hours ago and find the steady center of his
being—of his purpose.

The exercise proved to be impossible, because something inside himself had
shaken loose and was twisting around in his gut.

Deliberately he brought up scenes from another life, scenes that would help
him remember why he had come to Sea Gate, New Jersey.

He hadn't thought for a long time about making love with Marcy—or anyone
else. In the darkness he called on very private memories—of a time when they had
driven to the state park near their home and slipped in after dark. He'd left
her sitting on a rock by a stream that wound its way through mature trees and
tangles of honeysuckle.

He left her wearing a simple cotton dress. When he returned, a gray wolf
moving through the darkness, she was naked. Sensing his presence, she pushed off
from her seat, smiling as she came down on a bed of soft moss. He moved silently
to her side and stood looking down at her.

Slowly, slowly, she raised her arms, then circled the wolf's neck and drew
him close, scratching behind his ears and under his chin where he liked it, then
stringing kisses along his muzzle.

Since her death, he had ruthlessly kept memories like that out of his mind.
Now he focused on her slender body, on her scent, on the way she touched him—the
way she told him she wanted more than just to stroke and kiss him.

With a groan, he cut off the scene before it could go any further. He had
deliberately brought back memories of Marcy to wipe away the heated scene with
Antonia. But the two had become entwined, and both had the power to make him hot
and hard.

"Jesus, no!" he denied. He hadn't asked to get tangled up with another woman.
Hadn't expected it.

With a growl of anguish, he changed the picture. Maybe he had some vague idea
of proving to himself that he could resist Antonia—that he could control his
reactions to her.

His fantasy had her sitting outside in the moonlight, not by a stream, but on
a blanket in the dunes. In his mind, he made the location far out of town, where
nobody would disturb them. He was a gray wolf, standing twenty yards away, but
he knew she couldn't see him, which added to his excitement as she lifted her
face to the wind, drawing in a deep breath. That same wind blew her long cotton
shirt against her body, making her nipples stand out against the thin fabric. He
liked the view, but it wasn't enough.

Unconsciously, he clenched his jaw as the fantasy continued—as he had her
come up on her knees and unbutton the shirt. Her fingers weren't quite steady,
and it took a little time, drawing out his anticipation.

She was naked now. He hadn't seen her body, but he had felt it pressed to
his, and he could imagine her smooth skin, her womanly curves and a dark
triangle of hair at the juncture of her legs. As he trotted toward her, he
waited for her to turn and run. It had taken months before he'd dared to come to
Marcy as a wolf. Dared to trail his long, wet tongue over her breasts and down
her woman's body. Dared to taste the rich, female part of her.

But in his imagination, Antonia didn't flee the animal stalking her. She
stayed where she was, as he knew she would. It wasn't her lack of vision. She
would feel the coarse fur of the wolf. Feel his sharp teeth if he delicately
pressed them against her neck or her shoulder or her breast.

She wouldn't fear the wolf. She had waited in the dark for him. When he had
walked into her hallway, she had called out his name.

And now, as he watched, the back door of the house opened, and he went still,
seeing her emerge from the interior as though he had called out to her.

She was holding a white cane that he hadn't seen in her hand before. She'd
moved so confidently through her own house. But out here, she must feel less
assured.

She stood for a moment and lifted her head, the silver streak in her dark
hair drawing him like a beacon.

In an unconsciously sexy gesture she swept back her hair with one hand, then
swung her cane along the landing and each step before she walked down and stood
at ground level. Raising her head, she sniffed the wind, much as she had in his
vision of her on the beach. She was silent for several heartbeats, then she
turned her head toward him.

He felt goose bumps prickle his arms. If he didn't know better, he would
swear she was staring at him.

In a voice that wasn't quite steady, she asked, "Are you there?"