Somewhere I'll Find You (24 page)

He couldn’t.

But he did.

Catching a low breath, he pulled her to him.  When he heard her sigh, he covered her mouth completely
with his own
.  She was all softness and need, all hunger and woman, and she fired his
blood,
as it had never been before.  Pressing her to him, Michael slid his hands along her hips, her name a low whisper.  With
that
word came a wave of need, of protest, of wild discovery.

Her lips opened silently under his. 
Somehow,
her fingers
were
in his hair, tangling the waves that lay against the nape of h
is
neck and he felt her melt against him, her breath feathering against his lips.  Her ragged moan was loud in the still attic.

He told himself that he was crazy to want her like this.  But not all the cold reasoning in the world was going to change the way she made him feel.  Hungry.  Possessive.  Like a man who had discovered something precious that he didn’t know that he’d lost.

Fighting for sanity when all he wanted to do was make love to her, Michael was discovering how very difficult it was to ignore that little voice that kept telling him how delightful the meeting of their bodies would be.  Instead of following that dark advice,
however,
he cursed lowly, gritting his teeth when he reached for her hand.  “Let’s go.”

“Go?”  She looked dazed.

“You need
…
food.” 
He took
a step backward, smoothing down her nightdress.

“Food?”  She parroted the word blankly, looking past him to something he couldn’t see.

“Food,” he repeated harshly.  “Then the fire.”

“Fire,” she muttered dimly.

“And then w
e’re going to talk, Paige.  We
must
talk.”

She blinked as if having trouble focusing.  “Talk . . . yes
,
we have to talk.”  But her words were dark with a desire that dulled her senses.

Michael cursed.  Any more looks like that from her, and they would be rolling naked on what was left of the floor.  Maybe talking wasn’t such a good idea after all.  He wanted nothing more than to pull her against him
and kiss her back into blissful insensibility.

But he didn’t.

He couldn’t.

Not with all the questions hanging over them.  He caught a ragged breath, wondering just how much torture that he could take. She was looking at him, just looking, with wide, haunted eyes, and the sight was worse than
the impact of
a roundhouse kick.

“What’s happening, Michael?”  She was returning to herself, bit by bit, and he wasn’t certain whether to cheer or descend into the depths of despair.

“I think,”
He
said slowly, “that the past has finally found us.  Perhaps that’s why you’ve been haunting my
dreams;
we’re pieces of a bigger puzzle.  And somehow
,
we’ve got to make them fit.”

She ran her fingers through her hair.  “This frightens me.  I don’t believe in past lives.  I don’t,” she protested.  But her mind was racing beyond all that, to the meaning of things they were
not
saying. 
No – not with him.  Not in this life or any other.  With men like
him,
there can never be anything permanent.
  She knew, better than most, that trusting only brought one close enough to push one off the brink of betrayal.

“Right now, I don’t know
what
I feel,” he said slowly, wondering what she was thinking.  Taking the trunk, he shoved it into a
corner, away from the wind and
rain.  Turning, he looked at her, his eyes blazing in the dim candlelight.  “Right now
, all
I want
is
to go downstairs and find us something to eat.  In the morning, all of this will make perfect sense.”

Later, long after Paige had drifted to her room, Michael sat staring out the wide windows into the night.  The moon hung over the beach, veiled in the clouds.  In the wake of the storm, only night birds called, flying low over the lonely curve of sand.  And when he finally slept,
he
twisted restlessly in
his
dreams, the scent of gardenias filling the sleeping house.

The lovers always met at the cottage along the beach.  Erik’s
home was his – his and Lily’s,
in memory if not in fact,
--
and Jenny could never shake the feeling of stepping on a landmine whenever they met there.  Her quaint little home was their refuge, their memories held safe within its walls.

Silently, she stepped out of her heels.  They were ridiculously high, but Erik was so tall that it was the only way even to begin to look at him eye level.  As she removed her necklace, the pearls gleamed softly in her hands.  Looking over to the fireplace, she watched the broad length of his shoulders, his back stiff and unyielding as he gazed into the flames.  Even Argo, who had now resident status, watched his master from a safe distance.
Something had happened tonight, possibly while she’d been in the powder room.  He’d been grim and quiet since she’d returned to the table – had barely even danced with her – and Alistar Carver had been a watchful companion all that night, his icy eyes filled with a knowledge that had seemed to Jenny to be somehow sinister.  Had the two of them fought?  Surely not. Perhaps it was the studio
. Perhaps someone looked down on her relationship with a married man, placing pressure on him to end it.

“I’ve
put you in terrible danger,” Erik
began
at last
, his voice a low rumble.  “I didn’t think, when we first met, that I could fall so hard.  Or that my life could put others in jeopardy.” 
Finally
,
he
turned his eyes hard.
“Alistar was right.  Either I tell you everything or I leave and never come back.”  In a swift move, one so characteristic of him, he crossed the room to pull her into his arms.  “How can I let you go?” he asked, his face pressed in the wealth of her hair.  “How can I leave the only happiness I’ve ever known?”

Shaking her head, she pulled away only to cup his face in her hands.  “What is it dearest?  Whatever it is, we can face it together.  Is it the studio?  Are they pressing you with that morality clause?”

Gentle fingers caressed her cheek, slowly touching the skin at her throat.  He watched her pulse throb under her skin, watching as it matched the beating of his own heart.  Cursing, he moved away.  “I’ve gotten myself into a fix, and I have no right involving you in it.  Too many lives are at stake – including yours.  I can never see you again
,
un
less it’s on set.  You could die
because of my stupidity.”

Turning, Erik moved toward the door, Argo moving quietly to his side.  For a moment, Erik paused, his fingers grazing the dog’s large head.  “You stay here, old boy.  Stay here – you belong to her now.”

And without looking back, Erik walked out the door.

Jagged images filled Michael’s head, of a deep sadness too great to understand, and of a woman softly weeping.  Snatches of the dream played through his mind like distant music – familiar and yet not quite right.

Or were they memories?  He tossed in his sleep, unable to find the answer.

In the days that followed, Erik avoided Jenny whenever possible.  He would take her in his arms, and for the moment
s
when the cameras were rolling, he took whatever comfort he could find.  But each time, as soon as Daniel hollered cut, he practically pushed her away, stalking to some hidden corner.

From his chair, Daniel cursed lowly in fluent Gaelic.  Something had gone terribly wrong between the lovers, that much was obvious.  Jenny moved about like a lost specter while Erik drank gallons of orange juice, liberally laced, Daniel suspected, with vodka.

He also happened to know that Erik spent most of his nights holed up in that huge house of his. 
When he was seen out, which wasn’t often, that British friend of his, Alistar, was always in tow. 
There was something about that Brit that Daniel didn’t trust.

Finally, he
had enough.  Taking matters in hand, Daniel sought out Jenny, finding her in her dressing room.  Her
costume, a
gol
d dress
that glinted with the warmth of the sunlight outside,
fell in a pool
about her feet
. S
he wore a bleak expression that seemed to drag all the color from her
gray
eyes.  And he knew that she had been crying.

Again.

Leaning against the door jam, Daniel silently cursed Erik and any man that would make a woman such as this fall to weeping.  He stared past her, into her, her despair mingling with his own.  He had fallen in love months before with the beautiful young woman with the incredible on –camera chemistry, but Daniel was a practical man, one who knew that he could never compete with Erik.  But now, both of them needed some sort of intervention, and he seemed to be the only one able to provide it.

“Jenny lass, we need to talk,” he said quietly.  “Erik’s drinking is getting out of hand – much more than even he realizes.”

“What can I do?”  There were tears mingled with the question, even as she wiped them from her cheeks.  “He seems to be drinking only juice . . .”

“Juice mixed with vodka.  Jenny
,
whatever happened between you – fix it soon.”

A shadow passed behind Daniel as Erik stormed past to his own dressing room.  Glancing
automatically
over his shoulder, Daniel
refocused his attention on
Jenny
once Erik had moved out of earshot
.  “I need to say more to ya, but not here.  Your place?  Tonight?”

She nodded in agreement before turning away, her gown whisperi
ng like sorrow as she moved
.