remastered those skills he’d once had, but she had no doubt he’d have pushed himself further if she hadn’t pleaded cold.
A brooding softness touched her features as she stared into the fire, until she heard the sound of Mitch’s step behind her again. Glancing up, she was startled to see him carrying a blanket and a soft felt knapsack, both of which he plopped down next to her. “You’re about to get Cochran’s super-duper lecture on garnets,” he told her. “Unfortunately, you have to strip to get it.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s necessary. Trust me.”
“I
“There’s no need to look wary. I haven’t got that kind of energy left, as you should know. Besides, why on earth would you jump to that conclusion just because I want you to take off your clothes? You’re not cold?”
“I didn’t say I was
“Well, then.” He tugged at the sash of the robe, and then snatched at the voluminous sleeves. His movements were most efficient. Soon, she had nothing on but a pair of silk panties. The rest of her clothes had not been all wet when they’d first come in; he’d just insisted they were. “Now,” he said firmly, and then didn’t do anything at all, just let his eyes drift over her firelit flesh. “Now,” he repeated vaguely.
“The super-duper lecture,” she prompted him.
“Ah.” He unfolded the blanket and installed her on it with the pillows behind her. She watched, half smiling, as he perched on one hip next to her and reached for the knapsack. “This is a very serious business,” he told her.
“I can see that.”
“You’re going to have to listen very hard. Exams for this class are extremely difficult.”
“Already, I can see that I’ve had professors who were easier to please. No one, for example, ever required that I attend class in this particular condition.”
Mitch grinned, dug into the knapsack and pulled out a handful of gems. Very gently, he dropped them on her bare flesh, and then brought out another handful. Pushing aside the sack, he stretched out next to her and slowly started to rearrange the jewels-on her neck, her bare breasts, the flat, warm satin of her stomach…
“All garnets…” He cleared his throat. “All garnets are of the species almandite, found only in rocks of metamorphic origin… Actually, they’re made up of silicate minerals.” One ruby-red stone toppled from the tip of her breast to the crevice beside it. His eyes stole up to hers as he replaced the gem. “This first part of the lecture is kind of boring. Want to skip it?”
“I am not,” Kay assured him breathlessly, “bored.”
Neither was Mitch. He’d dreamed of showering her skin with gems. The reality was far more potent than the fantasy. The fire itself would have been enough, the way the flames added a luster and softness to her bare flesh. The stones had their own fire, and with every breath she took, thousands of scarlet and gold and emerald streaks darted over her breasts and throat and stomach.
The effect was not what he’d expected. The sensual look of her cloaked in jewels-
“Mitch-”
“Yes,” he said swiftly. “Garnets come in all colors. Witness-” His knuckles grazed her breasts as he plucked up a single stone and lifted it to the fire for her to see. “The standard dark ruby-colored garnet. The birthstone type. Pretty enough?”
“I-yes. Spectacular.”
“There are lots of those around. No big deal. Some semiprecious stones are a big deal, because their value is determined not just by quality, but by rarity. Certain kinds of garnets have more value than the precious stones they resemble. Such as this tsavorite-almost impossible to tell from an emerald, yes?”
She glanced at the incredible stone, and then at Mitch. “Beautiful,” she murmured, but it wasn’t strictly the stone she had in mind. A lock of dark hair had fallen over his forehead; she longed to brush it back. At the throat of his open flannel shirt, she could see the crisp spray of dark hair and could remember the feel of that hair against her bare skin. He was so very much a man.
The banked fires in his eyes were fooling her not at all, but it was more than sexual feeling that stirred her. It was an aching awareness of the man who was learning to share his feelings, who had so very much emotion inside him. An ache for his past loneliness…a loneliness that had lasted for way too many years.
“This one-” Mitch gently scooped a stone from her navel with a wicked grin “-is the most valuable. A demantoid garnet. Not found, regrettably, in Idaho-not yet, anyway. Geologically, there’s no specific reason why some couldn’t be discovered here, but for the moment that’s talking pipe dreams.”
Her fingers softly curled around his wrist. “As much as you loved it, you couldn’t skate, Mitch?” she whispered softly. “Even sometimes?”
If he hadn’t pressed a finger on her lips, she might have believed he hadn’t heard her. “We’re getting to the important part of the lecture,” he told her. “Star garnets. The Star of Idaho-” He raised another stone for her to see. “When the light is just right behind it, there seems to be a six-rayed star inside it. Actually, the star effect is a flaw in the stone-rutile…” There was no waiting, not any longer. “This last stone,” he said quietly, “is mine.”
Mitch’s eyes held hers, the faintest hint of a lazy smile on his mouth as his fingers carefully stroked the intimate triangle between her thighs. It was no accident that a certain gem had spilled there. Kay’s breath caught. “Yours,” she echoed.
“Totally.” He leaned over and roughly brushed his lips on hers. “Totally, Kay. No one else will ever know her.”
“Mitch-”
The strangest emotion clawed at her soul, even as he was pressing the stone into her palm. “No one’s ever seen it before, Kay. It’s just been registered, a week ago. A new stone’s still discovered from time to time, even now-but not often. An eight-sided garnet-it’s been months since I mined the first group of them and had them studied and evaluated, but I knew. I knew the first time I laid eyes on her…”
She sat up, reluctantly dragging her eyes from Mitch’s face to look at his stone. Moving it carefully back and forth between her fingertips, she was captivated by the play of flickering sparks within. The star was like a secret, only revealed when one moved the stone with precious care, and then the silver darts played up against the dark ruby background, infinitely fragile yet as brilliant as sunlight. When deprived of light, the star was lost.
“When you register a new stone, you have to name it.” Mitch pushed the garnets gently off her, urging her back against the pillows. “Kaystar,” he murmured. “Do you like it? Sort of like Telstar. Open, love.”
Her lips obediently parted, welcoming the possession of his as a rush of jumbled feelings exploded in her head. His mouth molded over hers and his palm slid down her fire-warmed skin and the room tilted. She closed her eyes, savoring the gift he had offered her. “Mitch,” she whispered when his mouth lifted from hers to skim kisses down the side of her throat.
“Don’t tell me the name is corny. I’ve been afraid you would think that. I’m not a sentimental man, Kay, but there was no possible way I could name it anything else.”
“It’s beautiful, Mitch.” Softly, her fingers stroked his cheek, loving the fierce vulnerability in his eyes. “More than beautiful.” Her other hand moved to undo the buttons on his shirt, one by one. Finally, there was room for her palm to sneak inside, to stroke his warm flesh, to feel the beat of life beneath her fingertips. Unconsciously, her finger traced the smooth line of his scar.
He bent to kiss her again, but his hand closed over that single roaming finger of hers. “You still want to know, don’t you?” he said quietly. “It’s bothered you ever since we went skating.”
“Not to pry,” she whispered. “Just to share, Mitch. I want to share everything I can with you.”
Straightening up, he drew off his shirt, and then came down to her once more. His head bent as he slowly traced a finger around one breast, raising gooseflesh, but he didn’t stop. “It wasn’t,” he said roughly, “like being an invalid. No, there was no skating, but I was hardly bedridden, either. I could swim. Some. I could learn, I could study, I could talk to people. I wasn’t some inanimate…parasite.”
“Mitch,” Kay whispered.
“What?”
“Get that tone out of your voice,” she said softly.
