When Next We Love (24 page)

Leigh’s lids began to droop and her lashes brushed softly against her cheeks. The timeless sensation was still with her, an enveloping feeling of happiness and security with Derek beside her, holding her. She slept, knowing they had forever.

Later, Leigh stirred in her lover’s arm and wedged closer for warmth. The moon was high above them in the heavens and the sea breeze chilled the dampness of her contented form.

“Cold?” Derek murmured.

“A little.”

“No romance!” Derek grumbled, encircling her closer. “You’re supposed to say something like, ‘Not with you to warm me!’ I am a hot thing to handle, you know.”

“Oh, I’d be the last to deny it, believe me.” Leigh laughed. “But maybe you could be ‘hot’ down in your cabin.”

“Anywhere you like.” Derek started to rise but Leigh stopped him with a wistful smile.

“In just a minute. I want to watch the stars a bit longer.”

Sliding his arms around the back of her shoulders, Derek sat, his thumb lovingly brushing her cheek while she cradled her head against his shoulders. “I have another confession to make anyway,” Derek said. “So I might as well tell you here. If you decide to jump out of bed on me, you’ll wind up in the Atlantic.”

“Another
confession?”

“Umm … I played a trick on you last night, but my intentions were the best. I didn’t want you getting away. When you pulled your streaking act out of the room, I slipped through the adjoining door and locked yours.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did. I couldn’t bear the thought of going to sleep without you after I had you in my arms again.”

“I didn’t even know there was an adjoining door! Why you son of a—”

“Hey!” Derek growled teasingly. “Don’t you dare say it! My mother is a nice woman and she bears absolutely no resemblance to the canine family.”

“I was going to say son of a gun,” Leigh protested.

“Nothing metallic in the family line either. But while we’re on it”—his voice abruptly grew low and gently serious—“how do you feel about a son?”

“I’d like one very much, but they don’t come by order. We could have a daughter,” Leigh advised him.

“We can keep trying until we have one of each,” Derek mused.

“That sounds terrific,” Leigh sighed.

Derek’s touch on her chin intensified and he twisted his head to face her. “Really, Leigh, would you mind if we started a family quickly? We have everything to give children, a secure future, a good home, and most important—love.”

Leigh crossed a leg and rose gracefully to her feet. The
Storm Haven
swayed beneath her as she placed a slender hand in Derek’s and drew him to her. God, how she loved him!

Her hair fell over her shoulders in deep rippling red, curling around her breasts; her eyes gleamed with the devilry of the full moon.

“Quickly?” she queried impishly, giving him her best vixen smile. Yes, quickly. This man of hers did have everything, strength, dignity, love, and compassion. He would make a wonderful parent.

In one fluid motion she came to her feet and stretched out her hand wordlessly, telling him all he wished to know.

S
HE HAD KNOWN HIM
for years, yet each day was a voyage of new love and discovery. She was his best friend, his partner, his lover, his mistress, his wife.

And it was a special night. A secret anniversary.

She had wanted him forever, loved him for an eternity.

He was a pirate tonight, a swashbuckling pirate with a rakish air and devilish smile. She was a gypsy, flamboyant and colorful, promising heavenly delight with boldly flirtatious, glittering hazel eyes.

But it didn’t matter what their guises. She loved him as a king, as a pirate, as her lordly mate, Derek Mallory.

And he knew exactly who she was. He loved her for exactly who she was, and for all the complexities that were what she was.

His eyes met hers across the room, then swept slowly over her figure with astute appreciation. Before she knew it she was in his arms. It felt so good, so right. He was everything wonderful: tall, strong, arrogantly masculine, and yet unceasingly tender. They belonged to one another as only very special lovers ever could.

He suggested that they leave and she didn’t blink an eye. Her slow, suggestive smile was all the answer he needed.

She vaguely noted that a leprechaun and a well-feathered Indian were discussing the London Company as they neared the pair, extolling the virtues of the group’s latest album.

“Leigh, Derek!” the Indian joyfully exclaimed. “I was just telling John about the calls I’ve had. The movie companies are hounding me! Do you believe that? Lord!” he said with a chuckle, “if I do say so myself, with the team of Mallory and Mallory in the lead of the London Company, we surpass genius!”

John, the leprechaun, smiled wryly. “Nothing like patting ourselves on the back!”

“Seriously,” Roger groaned, adjusting a loose feather, “what answers do I give these people?”

“Whatever you want,” Derek told him, his eyes on his wife. “Just don’t commit us to anything until next month. Lord and Lady Mallory have descended upon South Florida to care for their grandson and Leigh and I are leaving for the next four weeks.”

“Where—” Roger began.

“Oh, no!” Leigh exclaimed with a smile. “No one knows where we’re going! We don’t want to be found.”

“I’m sure you’ll handle whatever comes up, Roger,” Derek said patiently. “John, thanks for a super party. Have a good vacation too.”

“You two are going now? It’s early!”

“We are, indeed, leaving,” Leigh chuckled, tucking her hand into her husband’s crooked arm. “Why don’t you two run over and flirt with Sherry? This is her first big party and she is crazy about musicians!”

They were watched as they left. They were a fantasy couple: both tall, graceful, handsome, enviably in love. Happiness radiated from them and encompassed all who came near.

So began their special night. It was slow and easy and wonderful. They listened to the gentle strains of classical music as they sipped on mulled wine before the light and warmth of a mellow fire. They talked for hours, about their music, their friends, their son, the silken fantasy of their lives.

Their talking tapered into comfortable silence. He rose slowly and offered her his hand. By mute agreement she trustingly accepted him, and when she, too, was standing, he swept her as effortlessly as Stardust into his arms and lay her tenderly on the bed, where he disrobed her with loving reverence. She was naked now, susceptible and vulnerable. But his love was her strength, his powerful arms her harbor. And as always, she was lost in an endless field of longing and desire, totally absorbed in the magnificent male form before her, framed in a silhouette by the fire like a true golden king.

“With my body I thee worship,” he whispered, his husky voice against her throat sparking the fire that would soon rage through her veins and consume them.

Her fingers locked into his hair as their forms melded together. Lips played upon flesh, hands teased and caressed provocatively. Even as Leigh responded to her lover’s whispers of hunger and desire, she knew that they were blessed with the one ingredient for everlasting passion. Love. Then the fire raged out of control, and she no longer thought but surrendered to the ecstasy that enveloped and overwhelmed her. He demanded, he took, he gave, and all through the long night he proved once more that he would never have his fill of her.

Too soon the dawn broke across the heavens. She awoke with a start to find herself entwined with him, her head resting on his golden chest. She smiled with sweet fulfillment and joy, then carefully, so as not to awaken her sleeping king, she disengaged herself and dressed. She scampered to the door, but stopped. She had to go back, just for a second, just to kiss his sleep-eased brow.

Her lips touched his skin, then she backed away. His eyes were beginning to flicker. She made it to the door before he awoke and called for her to stop, demanded to know where she was going.

“For coffee!” She chuckled ruefully. “I thought I could make it back before you awoke and surprise you.”

“That’s okay.” He leaned on an elbow to watch her with contented, lazy eyes that still sparkled golden with insinuation. “You can go.”

“Oh?” She raised teasing brows. “And what if I disappear?”

He rose from the bed and sauntered toward her. “You will never disappear, love.” He kissed her until she went limp against him, weak and breathless. “You are truly part of me now.” He drew her closer to him, his embrace promising that they would be together forever.

Heather Graham (b. 1953) is one of the country’s most prominent authors of romance, suspense, and historical fiction. She has been writing bestselling books for nearly three decades, publishing more than 150 novels and selling more than seventy-five million copies worldwide.

Born in Florida to an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Graham attended college at the University of South Florida, where she majored in theater arts. She spent a few years making a living onstage as a back-up vocalist and dinner theater actor, but after the birth of her third child decided to seek work that would allow her to spend more time with her family.

After early efforts writing romance and horror stories, Graham sold her first novel,
When Next We Love
(1982). She went on to write nearly two dozen contemporary romance novels.

In 1989 Graham published
Sweet Savage Eden
, which initiated the Cameron family saga, an epic six-book series that sets romantic drama amid turbulent periods of American history, such as the Civil War. She revisited the nineteenth century in
Runaway
(1994), a story of passion, deception, and murder in Florida, which spawned five sequels of its own.

In the past decade, Graham has written romantic suspense novels such as
Tall, Dark, and Deadly
(1999),
Long, Lean, and Lethal
(2000), and
Dying to Have Her
(2001), as well as supernatural fiction. In 2003’s
Haunted
she created the Harrison Investigation service, a paranormal detective organization that she spun off into four Krewe of Hunters novels in 2011.

Graham lives in Florida, where she writes, scuba dives, and spends time with her husband and five children.

Graham (left) with her sister.

Graham with her family in New Orleans. Pictured left to right: Dennis Pozzessere; Zhenia Yeretskaya Pozzessere; Derek, Shayne, and Chynna Pozzessere; Heather Graham; Jason and Bryee-Annon Pozzessere; and Jeremy Gonzalez.

Graham at a photo shoot in Key West for the promotion of the Flynn Brothers trilogy.