Til Death Do Us Part (33 page)

“That's happened before,” Beatrice said. “Besides, she's been a nervous wreck ever since Daddy died. She made a nasty scene at the reading of the will.”

“Well, Mr. Sutton said he'd given his wife a sedative and put her to bed. And Trey sent Marla to their room. The rest of them are downstairs waiting for us. They're demanding a family meeting.”

“They're what?” Beatrice screeched.

“For what reason?” Cleo asked.

“They want to hire a night watchman for the grounds,” Roarke said. “Daphne told me that she's felt uneasy ever since someone took a shot at you, and now that her mother has seen someone lurking about outside, the sensible thing to do is hire protection for the family.”

“They're trying to throw suspicion off themselves,” Beatrice said. “I wouldn't put it past Daphne to be at the root of all our problems.”

“I think we should meet with them,” Roarke said. “Cleo, you tell them that you think hiring a night watchman for the grounds is an excellent idea and you'll see to it immediately. Then we'll have Kane put one of his security people on the job.”

“Do you think that's necessary?” Beatrice asked.

“If they're bluffing, we'll call their bluff,” Cleo said.

“And we'll be putting one of our own men in place and not someone they hire.” Holding the door open, Roarke nodded. “Shall we join the family powwow?”

“By all means.” Cleo marched into the hallway, her head held high.

 

A
N HOUR LATER
, Roarke and Cleo returned to her suite, the immediate family emergency settled, if not to everyone's satisfaction, at least to Roarke's. As long as Cleo continued allowing him the power to make all security
decisions, he felt relatively certain that he could keep her safe. And her safety was his top priority.

Daphne and Trey had protested Roarke's hiring the night watchman for the grounds, telling him plainly that he was a newcomer to the McNamara-Sutton family and had no right to take charge. Cleo backed Roarke a hundred percent, and since she held the purse strings, the others begrudgingly acquiesced to her wishes.

Daphne had pursed her red lips in a little-girl pout and huffed loudly. Roarke suspected he was the first man she'd been unable to twist around her little finger, and so was frustrated at not being able to get her way and seduce him into her bed.

“It doesn't matter to me who hires this security person,” Perry Sutton had told them. “Oralie insisted that I speak to y'all about hiring someone and I promised her that I would. She refused to take her sleeping pill until I agreed.”

Roarke locked the bedroom door as he did every night. Cleo retrieved her gown and robe from the closet, then headed toward the bathroom.

“I'm tired. This has been a long, difficult day,” she said. “I'm going to take my bath and go to bed.”

“Go ahead,” Roarke told her. “I think I'll watch a little TV. I'll keep it low so it won't disturb you.”

She paused in the bathroom doorway. “Simon?”

“Yeah?” Dammit, he wished she wouldn't call him “Simon” when they were alone. But he could hardly demand that she call him “Roarke.” What could he tell her? That her using his first name aroused him?

“Thank you for taking this job. For marrying me,” Cleo said.

Before he could reply, she hurried into the bathroom and closed the door. Every time she said something sweet
and sentimental like that, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. A warning? He was beginning to worry that Cleo just might possess the power to get through his defenses and make him feel something more than sexual desire. He couldn't let that happen.

Roarke picked up the remote and stretched out on the love seat, hanging his feet over the edge. He found a special on A&E about World War II.

No matter how tired he was, he intended waiting until Cleo was sound asleep before he took his shower and joined her in bed. It was difficult enough lying there beside her when she was asleep, but he couldn't bear it when he knew she was awake and could possibly turn to him and ask him to make love to her.

While one part of his brain registered the events on the television special, another part went over the entire day's events. As the minutes ticked by, he wondered how long it would be before she emerged from the bathroom, fresh, clean and warm from her bath. She'd taken a dark green silk teddy and robe into the bathroom with her. Did she intend to sleep in nothing but a lace teddy?

“Roarke!” Cleo's overly calm voice called out from the bathroom.

He jumped to his feet. “Is something wrong?” He rushed into the bedroom, stopping outside the closed bathroom door.

“I—I can't get out of the bathtub. There are spiders crawling around on the floor. And—and I'm pretty sure that they're brown recluse spiders.”

“Stay right where you are,” he told her.

“Please, Simon. Help me!”

N
OT EVEN AS
a child had Cleo been the type of female who was afraid of insects. Much to Aunt Beatrice's dismay, as a preschooler Cleo had been fascinated by grass-hoppers and ladybugs and had often handled them with great delight. But spiders were something else altogether. She'd been taught that black widows and brown recluses could be deadly. Pearl had told horror stories about how her own little brother had almost died from a severe reaction to a brown recluse bite.

Cleo stood in the middle of the huge whirlpool tub, her wet, naked body shivering, her nerves jangling. She hadn't noticed anything unusual when she'd entered the bathroom earlier. Nothing out of place.

How could half a dozen spiders have crawled into the bathroom? They couldn't have. One? Unlikely, but possible. Six? Out of the question. Someone had to have placed them inside the large, fluffy towels stacked on the white-wicker shelves at one end of the tub.

Cleo shuddered, remembering how she'd reached out and picked up one of those towels and seen a brown recluse clinging to the terry-cloth surface. The tiny, brown spider had wriggled its eight legs. Cleo had gasped and dropped the towel, but not before she'd noticed the dark, violin-shaped mark on its back near the head. Pearl had been the one who'd taught her how to instantly recognize the poisonous creature.

Within minutes she had noticed other identical spiders crawling over the stack of towels. That's when she had called for help.

Roarke opened the bathroom door, stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Cleo crossed her arms over her breasts, but felt rather silly thinking about modesty at a time like this.

“Be careful,” she cautioned him. “They're crawling all over the floor. I've counted six of them.”

His gaze traveled the length and breadth of the twelve-by-twelve-foot bathroom, noting the location of all six spiders. “Stay in the tub. I'll get you out.”

He had thought of little else but Cleo's naked body lying beneath his. And her little striptease in the closet earlier had certainly added fuel to the fire. For half a second, he looked at her, absorbing the fine lines of her body, the delicate, slender beauty of her feminine curves.

His sex grew hard and heavy. Dammit, he couldn't help how his body reacted, could he? After all he was a man, and Cleo was a lovely, desirable woman.

He crossed the bathroom and stopped at the edge of the tub. Deciding to do the gentlemanly thing, Roarke reached toward the wicker shelves, intending to pull out a towel and wrap it around Cleo.

“Don't,” she screamed. He glared at her, his expression questioning her sanity. “The spiders crawled out of the towels. There could be more inside them.”

He nodded his understanding, then glanced down at where a spider inched close to his right foot. Without hesitation, he raised his foot and smashed the thing.

“Let me get you out of here, honey,” he said. “Then I'll come back in here and take care of these little pests.”

Roarke lifted her out of the water and into his arms, bringing her naked body up against his chest. In his walk
to the door, he ground another spider beneath his feet. Cleo clung to him, shivering, as much from fear as from the chill. After closing the bathroom door behind them, Roarke dashed over to the bed and set Cleo on the edge, then lifted the quilt coverlet and draped it around her shoulders.

When she looked up at him with her big, trusting green eyes, he could not resist the urge to kiss her. He brushed his lips quickly across hers.

“Stay put. I'll be right back.” He headed toward the bathroom.

“Please be careful.” She clutched the quilt in both hands, savoring the warmth and protection it provided.

He rewarded her concerned plea with that self-confident little grin of his that she had grown accustomed to over the past week. Then he disappeared into the bathroom.

Fidgeting nervously as she sat on the edge of the bed, Cleo wondered if she shouldn't do something. Call the exterminator? Phone the police? Warn the rest of the family that their home had been invaded by poisonous spiders?

No, there wasn't any need to alarm the rest of the household when she felt certain the spider infestation was limited to her private bath. And if she called the police, what would she tell them? One of my relatives is trying to kill me and I think they planted half a dozen potentially deadly spiders in my bathroom? And she'd wait for Roarke's assessment of the situation before she made a call to the exterminator this late at night.

Maybe she should put on some clothes. The lace teddy and robe that she'd intended wearing to torment Roarke lay on the vanity stool in the bathroom. She had other teddies. She could slip into one of them. No, Roarke had said for her to stay put. When he emerged from his spider
annihilation mission, she would be right here, waiting for him.

In retrospect, things didn't seem as scary as they had just a few minutes ago when she'd been totally naked and surrounded by a troop of three-eighths-of-an-inch assassins. Odd, she thought, how completely she'd come to count on Simon Roarke, how totally she trusted him to protect her.

Even though she'd been fortunate enough to have been nurtured, loved and adored by Aunt Beatrice and Pearl and trained for success by a loving uncle George, Cleo had always possessed an independent streak. A need to take care of herself. A determination to do things without assistance, and to do them her own way. And yet here she was, relying on someone else—a man who, although he was her husband, was practically a stranger. But he didn't seem like a stranger. After less than two weeks' acquaintance, she had no doubts that she could trust Roarke with her life. And not simply because he was her employee, but because he was the kind of man who instinctively took care of his own.

“Mission accomplished.” Roarke emerged from the bathroom like a conquering hero, having vanquished the foe. “We'll get an exterminator in first thing tomorrow, strictly as a safety precaution. I'm certain there's not a spider left alive. And Pearl's going to have a job straightening up the mess I made in there.”

Cleo found that she'd lost her voice when she tried to speak, to verbally respond to Roarke. He stood there, his hair slightly mussed and damp, and grinned at her. His shirt was partially unbuttoned, enough so she could see his moist, curling chest hair. And his sex bulged against his jeans.

She rose up off the bed, mesmerized by the power
radiating from Roarke and urged into action by her own feminine needs. With the quilt draped around her shoulders, she clutched the edges together across her chest. She stared at him, wanting to ask him to make love to her, but her voice was mute. Only her eyes spoke for her.

Roarke halted, stopped dead in his tracks by the look in Cleo's warm green eyes. Was he reading her right? Was she asking for what he thought she was? Or had he let his own desperate need for her influence his perception? “Cleo?”
Tell me, dammit! Say the words, honey. I want to hear you ask.

With her gaze fixed on Roarke, she took several tentative steps toward him. The sound of her rapidly pumping heart roared in her ears. She felt hot and moist, and ached unbearably. All she knew was that she wanted Roarke. No, she needed him. Now.

Boldly, she released her grip on the quilt and allowed it to drop from her shoulders and slide down her body, forming a cotton mound on the floor. She stood before him, naked, unashamed and painfully aroused. Being a wanton seductress was something new for her. But then, wanting a man the way she wanted Roarke was also a new experience.

“Ah, Cleo Belle.” Roarke tensed, every muscle tightening, every nerve fully alert. His sex grew hard and heavy. “Come here.” He didn't open his arms, he simply stood unmoving, waiting for her to obey his command.

They kept their eyes focused on each other, their gazes locked. Cleo walked toward him, slowly, surely. And all the while she wondered if her weak legs could make the short journey. When she reached him, she broke eye contact, lowering her head shyly, needing for Roarke to make the next move. She had come this far, done this much. Now it was time for him to take charge.

“Let me look at you,” he said.

Cleo shivered. Her breasts ached, needing his touch to bring them relief.

His gaze traveled over her, from the cap of red silk covering her head to the triangle of red fluff at the apex between her thighs. Small and delicately made, her skin like porcelain, Cleo possessed a perfect, petite body.

His instincts told him that she'd never done anything like this before, never served herself up on a silver platter, her body an offering to a man's desire.

“You're lovely,” he told her. “The loveliest thing I've ever seen.”

Throbbing, tingling, aching sensations created turmoil inside her. She didn't know how much longer she could stand here without crumbling, without crying out, without begging him to end her agony.

“Undress me,” he said, and lifted her hands to his chest.

With unsteady fingers she finished unbuttoning his shirt and spread it apart. Gasping, she shut her eyes. The sight of his hairy, muscled chest took her breath away. She ran her hand over his chest, loving the feel. Tangling her fingers in the thatch of hair, she pressed her cheek against his chest and breathed in the rich, earthy aroma of an aroused man. Her man. Her husband.

She traced the thick scar tissue on the right side of his chest with her fingertips. “How did you get these?”

“Bullets. It happened on an assignment last year. I almost died.”

“Oh.” Lowering her head, she kissed his scars.

Threading his fingers through her hair, he grasped her head. “Finish the job, honey.” Roarke's voice was thick with desire. “Undress me.”

Opening her eyes and lifting her head, Cleo stared up at him. He was so tall he towered over her. He released
her hair. She slipped the shirt down his shoulders, over his arms and let it drop to the floor. She stared at his belt buckle. She could do this. She had to do this. Roarke wasn't going to help her. He intended to make her strip him.

Struggling several minutes with the buckle, she finally undid it. Then she unsnapped and unzipped his jeans. His sex bulged against the exposed V of his cotton underwear. She gripped his hips and tugged on his jeans, pulling them down. When they reached his ankles, the jeans hung on his feet. Kneeling before him, Cleo unlaced his athletic shoes. Roarke kicked them off one at a time, then held up his left foot. She removed his sock, then the other when he lifted his right foot.

She glanced up the long length of his legs. Powerful, hairy legs. When she swayed forward, resting her head against him, Roarke reached down and lifted her hands to the elastic waistband of his briefs. Staying on her knees, she tugged his underwear over his hips, over his straining sex and down his legs. Roarke stepped out of his briefs and stood there before her, totally naked, fully erect and powerfully male.

Placing his hands under her armpits, he lifted her until her mouth was almost touching him intimately. Her warm breath felt like flames against his engorged shaft. She placed her lips on him, the first kiss hesitant, the next and then the next more eager, as she kissed him from root to tip and back again.

When he could no longer bear her moist, hot caresses, he grasped her head in both hands and drew her sweet mouth away from him. Groaning, the sound a ravaged statement of need, he threaded his fingers through her hair. When she looked up at him, her face flushed, her
eyes glazed with passion and her damp lips slightly parted, Roarke thought he would explode.

He lifted her to her feet, his breath ragged, his heart thundering like a wild, racing stallion. Pulling her up to him and off her feet, he pressed his sex against her belly, her breasts against his chest. Then he devoured her mouth in a kiss that robbed her of her breath and of what little sense she had left.

She flung her arms around him, taking his kisses and returning them full measure. Clutching her buttocks in his big hands, he crushed her mound against his sex. She cried out. He moaned.

“Tell me, Cleo. Tell me and I'll put us both out of our misery.”

“I want you,” she said breathlessly. “Make love to me. Please.”

Gathering her up and into his arms, he carried her to the bed and laid her in the center, then came down on top of her. He was hard and heavy and big. So very big. He made her feel tiny and helpless against his strength.

He kissed her savagely, conquering her mouth with his thrusting tongue. Moving hastily on to new territory, he attacked her breasts with tender fierceness, squeezing them gently as he lifted them. He pinched one puckered point, then the other. She moaned and writhed beneath him. Lowering his mouth, he sucked greedily, moving from one begging nipple to the other.

While his mouth ravaged her breasts, he stroked her belly, then moved his hand downward, probing the notch of her legs. When he touched her intimately, her hips rose off the bed. He slipped his hand between her thighs, parting them, then inserted his fingers into the damp, hot tightness. She buckled, her body undulating, pleading for his possession.

“Now, Simon. Now!” She gripped his buttocks, forcing him closer.

“Yes, Cleo. Now.” His tongue plunged into her mouth the exact moment he removed his hand and thrust into her waiting warmth with his hardness.

Her body sheathed his, surrounding him snugly within a hot, fluid grip. She was as ready for this mating as he. As mindless with passion. As desperate with need.

He knew he couldn't make it last, for either of them. They were both too hungry, too starved for satisfaction. He moved in and out, increasing the pace with each lunge.

She gasped loudly. Her swollen femininity clenched him tightly. And then she cried out her release. Furious. Overwhelming. Earth-shattering. The spasms shook her body.

Roarke moved faster, his thrusts harder and deeper. And while she still quivered with the aftershocks of her release, he spilled himself into her. He shuddered, then his body jerked several times as it emptied the last drops of completion. Groaning with satisfaction, he stared down at Cleo, and the sight of her lying beneath him, so blissfully fulfilled, stirred his body.