In the Midnight Hour (25 page)

“
Why not now
?”

“I intend to build a dynamite career first, and that takes time and effort and dedication if you intend to be successful, and I do.”

“
You would rather
work
than have a child
?” At his incredulous expression, she frowned.

“Why is that so hard to believe?”

“
Because
—”

“—I’m a woman,” she cut in, “and women are supposed to be content being barefoot and pregnant, cooking and cleaning. Women can do other things besides have children.”

“
Of course they can. Women are smart, beautiful, talented, and they have the ability to give mankind the greatest, most wondrous treasure of all. Why would they want to do
anything
else
?”

“Because …” She seemed at a sudden loss for words. When he put it that way … “Because I just don’t. I’m young and have more to offer the world.” She glanced at the tangle of arms and legs across her lap. “Spitting up, sticky hands, and dirty diapers—no, thank you. I’ll settle for running my own firm, worrying over employees and returns instead of kids and runny noses.”

That’s what she said, but Val didn’t miss the way her hand absently stroked the little girl’s golden hair, or the way her other hand curled around the little boy’s arm protectively.

“
Children are a blessing
.” He walked to the French doors and stared out at the surrounding landscape.

“You really think that, don’t you?” The question, filled with surprise, carried to him on the soft breeze and he smiled.

“
Not always
, chérie.
When I was young, I thought like most boys. Children were a far off responsibility that I hadn’t the time or energy to deal with. I was much too busy getting into trouble. It is true what they say about never
appreciating
what you have until it is gone. I’d never wanted a child until I could not father one
.”

“What are you saying?”

“
My parents weren’t all that the carriage accident took from me. I was with them during the accident and I was hurt. One of the carriage rods pierced me in a very delicate area
.”

“I saw the scar.”

He cut her a glance.

“When you were resting yesterday morning. I saw the scar.”

“
I healed, but
I
would never be whole again, that’s what the doctor said. He told my gran that I would
never
be able to father a child because the rod damaged something inside me. It severed the wires, so to speak. I didn’t believe him. I felt excitement, I still had an erection. How could I not be able to father a child? I was fourteen, and determined to prove him wrong. After all, I was the man of the house now. The only hope for the Tremaine name
.” His head dropped as he stared at the floor. “
And I wanted a child. I wanted to be a loving father like my father had been, to continue his legacy. At first, I waited, determined to find the woman of my dreams the way my father had. Then all would be right
.” He shook his head. “
I never found any one
woman I
felt that strongly about, and so I set my sights on simply fathering a child. I would then marry the woman who managed to conceive, and all would be right
.” He shook his head. “But
nothing was ever right
.”

“So you’ve never been in love?”

“Non. Et tu?”

“Too busy.”

“
Perhaps you should slow down a bit
.”

“Slow down and get left behind. I’ve got bills to pay, studying to do, a diploma to earn. I don’t have time for love. Most of all, I don’t have the desire.”

He turned and flashed her a grin. “
You’re wrong on that count
, chérie.
You have a great deal of desire
.”

Too much, Val thought, noting her flushed cheeks, the way her lips parted on a soft gasp at his words. She brimmed with desire and it was all he could do to keep from crossing the distance to her, hauling her into his arms, and tasting just how much.

He shook away the sudden regret and forced his gaze back to the open French doors.

“I went to Heaven’s Gate today.” When he cut her a sharp glance, she shrugged. “I didn’t find out anything interesting, but there’s a local historian there who promised to keep an eye open. After I met with him, I drove out to the plantation.

“It’s a beautiful stretch of land.” Her voice softened. “I saw the river, the apple trees. I saw you, Val. It was the strangest thing. I closed my eyes, and there you were. In my head.”

In my heart
.

He could have sworn he heard the words. He would have, were it not for the emotion roiling inside him. The want. The need. Enough to make him imagine the damndest things.

“What happens when I find out the truth for you?” she asked after a long moment.

He didn’t turn. He didn’t trust himself to look at her as she was now, so soft and rumpled from sleep, the children in her arms. A picture that would haunt him for the eternity to come. “
I cross over into peace. Once I have the answer I seek, at the exact hour of my death, three a.m., I will make the journey to the other side. As I should have so long ago
.”

Silence fell around them then, disrupted only by the pounding of his own heart. Although she didn’t ask any more of him, he felt her gaze burning into his back, questioning him, beckoning him.

Distance, he told himself. Emotional distance and he could do this. He could tutor her and not make love to her, no matter how she did that little frowning thing with her eyebrows all wrinkled up, begging for his hands to soothe the expression away, or how her lips protruded in a slight pout, or how the fire flared in her eyes when she tossed a pillow at him.

The thing was, Val suddenly wasn’t as worried about the making love part as he was about the falling in love.

Chapter Thirteen

“Shouldn’t we be doing something a bit more … physical?” Ronnie asked the next night. “I mean, we mastered kissing so I thought we’d move on to touching. A little hand-holding. Something.”

“
That’s why you’re the student and I’m the teacher
,” Val pointed out. “
How can you touch and be touched if you don’t even know your heart’s true desire
?” It sounded like a good argument, and heaven knew he needed one right now.

She was right. After the kiss they should have progressed to physical contact, to touching above the waist, then below, then …

He stiffened and frowned. “
You have to be in tune to your body
.”

“I’m already in tune to my body. How can I not be when there’s so much of it?”

“
That’s the sort of thinking that will stunt your progress. It’s not about the way you look
—”

“—but the way you think. I know, I know.” She glanced down. “But tell that to my hips.”

He’d like nothing better.

He shook the thought away, his mouth drawing into a thin line. “
I want you to dig down, deep inside yourself, and discover what you truly yearn for
.” He gathered his control.
Deep
was not a word to be thinking of with a ripe beauty—this particular beauty—at his fingertips. “
Think of your wildest fantasy
.”

She gave him a suspicious glance before blowing out a deep breath that lifted her chest just enough to make him swallow.

“You’re the boss.”

“
That I am. Now think
.”

Despite her initial reluctance, she didn’t have to think very long before she poured out a very enticing, erotic fantasy, and Val wondered if maybe he hadn’t made a big mistake.

He’d needed noncontact. Distance. Particularly after the kissing episode. But this …
Merde!
If this wasn’t just as trying.

She sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes closed, head tilted back just enough to expose the smooth column of her throat. A soft smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she described the most enticing fantasy featuring strawberries.

“… a trickle of juice on my neck and lower. A drip-drop here.” She pointed to one nipple straining against the soft fabric of her shirt. “And here.” She pointed to the other. “And all the way—” her fingers swept down, down “—to right here—”

“Enough,” he growled. “
That’s quite enough for tonight
.”

She smiled. “But I’m getting pretty good at this. I never would have thought about strawberries in that way, but after reading about that little episode with the grapes in one of your letters, I think I could definitely enjoy a few strawberries. By the way, who did you do that grape thing with?”

“
Her name was
…” He racked his brain for an answer. He knew the woman. He knew every woman. It was one of the traits that women liked most. No woman ever feared being forgotten by Valentine Tremaine. They were all important, every beautiful face, every heated moment. The grape episode had been one of his more pleasurable experiences. He’d always loved grapes and when she’d suggested it … What the blazes was her name?

“Who?” she prodded, and Val did the only thing a man in his position could do when a woman backed him into a corner and demanded the truth—he blurted the first lie that came to mind.

“
Madonna
.” Madonna? While she had a pleasurable singing voice, she wasn’t exactly his type.

What in
hell
was he thinking?

Every woman was his type. Blonde or brunette. Short, tall, thin, or voluptuous. The female race was his type, Madonna included, even if she could stand to gain a few pounds, and maybe try some hair color. A flaming, fiery red.

“Madonna? That name doesn’t ring a bell. Was it a nickname? Did she use it in the letter?”

“
You can’t expect me to commit every signature to memory
,” he snapped, pacing to the window and back. “
Her name was Madonna and she loved grapes. That’s the end of it
.”

“But I thought you were the one who loved grapes. She said she suggested it because you—”

“
What difference does it make
?”

“You don’t have to be so grumpy.”

“
I am not grumpy
.” He stomped a path to the French doors and opened them to a gust of humid Louisiana heat.

Just what he needed. More heat to suck the air from his lungs and make his head spin, his blood race, his body …
want
.

“
The lesson is over
.”

“We just started.”

“
And we just finished
.”

“Look, Val, I need more than one fantasy on record for Miss X. She’s a successful, mature woman who’s looking for love. No way will Guidry buy that this woman only has one fantasy.”

“
It’s late.
”

“It’s barely two a.m.” She closed her eyes and smiled like a child about to dig in to a platter of cookies. “Just listen to this. I’ve got another one that really rocks.” She closed her eyes. “Okay, I’m standing in the shower, the water’s streaming down, the glass is fogged. I can’t see anything, but I feel everything.” A soft smile parted her full lips. “Hands at my back, my hips, gliding around to touch my—”

“
Enough
.” Her eyes snapped open again and collided with his. “
You’d be the death of me if I weren’t already dead
,” he muttered, desperate to ignore the flush of her cheeks, the rosiness creeping down her neck, disappearing beneath the neckline of her T-shirt. The longing in her eyes.

That drew him more than anything else. The gold heat that warmed him from the inside out and set him ablaze.

And he burned so damned hot.

Too hot because of what he was, what he’d become by his foolish passion and one fatal mistake.

Never again.

“You know, Val, you’re supposed to be encouraging this. Some teacher you are.”

He turned and snatched up her notebook. “
Here. Write the bloody fantasy down
.” A few more lessons, a few more weeks, and this last trial would be over.

The truth would set him free from the desire gripping his soul and give his spirit peace.

Oddly enough, the thought didn’t appeal nearly as much as it had before, not with Veronica’s sweet breathing echoing in his ears, her scent fierce in his nostrils, her fantasies still vivid in his mind.

Strawberries and showers.

She was definitely learning well.

At the rate she was going, she was bound to lose her damned virginity and give him a grand send-off into the Afterlife.

As appealing as the thought was, it also bothered the hell out of him. It was a territorial thing, of course. He was tutoring her and so he didn’t want her first time to be with just any clod without a clue as to how to handle such a passionate woman.

She needed an equal in her bed, a man who knew all there was to know about pleasuring a woman. A man who knew her deepest, sweetest desires, her fantasies …