Treasures aka See How She Dies

22

“Tell me about my mother.” Adria, shivering as the afterglow faded, stared up at the swaying, long-needled branches of the pines to the blue sky beyond. A few filmy clouds moved slowly through the heavens but didn’t spoil the day.

Beside her, Zach tensed. “I didn’t know your mother.” He reached for his faded Levi’s and slid into them. “She lived in Montana with you.”

“My other mother,” she clarified, refusing to let him vex her, but she wasn’t going to let him put her off as he had in the past. They were lovers now-they could share everything. “Katherine.” The ground was cold and goose bumps rose on her flesh as she found her jeans and sweater.

After making hot, furious love to her, Zachary had held her against his naked body. She’d seen the scar on his shoulder, been reminded of the night that London had disappeared and had convinced herself that she couldn’t be related to him. Either he was Polidori’s son or she wasn’t London Danvers. Now, as her mind cleared, she wasn’t so certain.

He seemed more remote than ever, as if the shock of what they’d done had been a slap of reality-cold water in his face.

“Katherine wasn’t your mother,” he said with conviction.

“You don’t know that.”

That much was true, Zach thought as he yanked on his boots. He had to get away, far away. Being with her was like being trapped in a seductive spider’s web, sticky and warm and exciting but infinitely dangerous. Whether she’d decided to make love to him because she suddenly didn’t believe they could be related, or because she thought he would let down his defenses and give her more information about the family, or because she wanted to blackmail him later, or, God forbid, because her motives were pure and she was falling for him, he knew it just couldn’t happen. He should have been stronger. Ever since Kat, he’d been in control and had never let a woman seduce him. He’d always been the predator. His will where sensual women were concerned had been strong. Until now. With Adria. He ground his teeth together in disgust and stood, swiping at the dust covering his jeans.

He’d been unable to resist her-the defiance in her blue eyes, the challenging tilt of her chin, her soft, sensual lips, and the provocative invitation that touched him in a deep, roughly animal place, where his body took over and his mind shut down. He’d wanted sex. With her. Lusty, hot, get-your-rocks-off sex, and he’d ended up with more. Too much. An emotional whirlpool that threatened to drag him under.

Just like Kat!

He slammed his eyes shut and told himself it was just a matter of time. If he could maintain some distance from that body of hers, he could stay in control. At least until he had all this figured out.

Like hell, Danvers. How’re you going to stay away from her? Now that you’ve had a taste, a teasing nibble of her, how are you going to fight the craving that even this minute is tearing you up inside?

The muscles in his back drew so tight they hurt. Angrily, he threw on his jacket. “We’ve got to get back. It’s cold.”

He stiffened as her fingers touched his shoulder. “You don’t have to feel guilty,” she said over the roar of the river as it dived from the cliffs to the gully far below.

“I don’t.”

“Then why-”

“Look, Adria, we can’t do this. Not anymore. Not until we find out for sure.” He placed firm hands on her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “It just can’t happen.”

“So you’re starting to believe me.”

“For Christ’s sake, do you know what we’re talking about here?” he said, nearly screaming. “Incest!” The word hung between them, seeming to haunt the forest, standing still in the chill afternoon light.

“It’s not-”

“How do you know? If you’re so damned sure that you’re London, then how do you know?”

He watched her swallow with difficulty. “Because,” she said, tossing her hair away from her face, “I believe that you’re not Witt’s son.”

“Christ!” His face turned ashen. “Is that your rationalization?” He grabbed her arms so hard that she felt his fingers digging deep into her flesh through her jacket. “Now listen to me, sister, I’m not Polidori’s son.”

“How do you know?” she threw back at him, tossing the very words in his face that he’d spit at her.

“Don’t you think that when Eunice and Witt split up, when she was stripped bare of everything she claimed she wanted, don’t you think she would have turned around and laughed in his face, told him that his second son had been fathered by his enemy, insisted that I stay with her?”

“Not if she wanted her reputation to stay intact. Her reputation, as I understand it, was as important to her as you children, so she would never say anything to tarnish it.”

“As we children? What a laugh. We were never important to her.”

“I think-”

“You don’t know. As for her reputation, it was already black as tar.”

He made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat.

“I don’t believe she intended to hurt you.”

Eunice’s words, uttered at his bed in the hospital, whispered through his head. I hate to admit it, Lord knows a mother shouldn’t, but you’ve always been my favorite. Of all my children, you were the one closest to my heart. As if he was different. As if he wasn’t Witt’s son. Oh, God, no! All the spit dried in his mouth and he stared at Adria as if he were looking into the window of his future. “You couldn’t have done this”-he motioned to the bed of pine needles under the tree-“on the outside chance that I wasn’t a Danvers.”

“I did it for the same reasons you did, Zach. Because I wanted to. Because I couldn’t stop myself. Because from the first time I saw you, I knew it would happen. Because…because, damn it, I think I love you.”

She lifted up on her toes then and kissed him hard on the lips. He told himself to back off, that they were playing with fire, that no matter what happened, there could be no good ending to this, they would both be burned and yet he couldn’t stop himself. His arms fastened around her slim waist and he wouldn’t let go. He kissed her and held her and stripped her of her clothes, looking in fascination at the beauty of her breasts, white, with a fine webbing of blue veins hidden deep beneath the firm flesh, her nipples perfectly round and hard as he touched them and kissed them and buried his face between the two warm mounds.

He kissed the skin of her abdomen, drawing lazy circles around her navel before he slid lower and she writhed in pleasured torment beneath him. She tasted of woman and earth and all things primeval.

While the wind teased her hair, her fingers and hands worked their own sweet magic on him, shedding him of his clothes, tracing intimate circles along his spine and chest, dipping low beneath his jeans to push the tight denim over his butt.

Her eyes shone as she kissed him and tasted his hard-button nipples and skimmed her tongue down his breastbone and along the dark hairs that formed a line beneath his navel.

He fought the urge to close his eyes and stared at her, this woman who was forbidden, this woman whom he believed was only out for herself, this woman who could find the most hidden corners of his heart and expose them.

He shuddered as he took her with the same hot fervor that had consumed him the first time, driving into her with a force that was sure to chase the demons from his mind, thrusting hard and fast, hearing the catch of her breath, feeling her slick, velvet warmth envelop him, losing all thought, all reason, all control as the world seemed to burst and he fell against her, breathing hard, unable to think with any sort of reason. He was lost in the magic of her and he wondered if he’d ever break free. Would he ever want to? Kissing the sweat-soaked curls at the nape of her neck, he wished the world would go away and leave them alone and that, God in heaven, that they could be lovers forever. Without fear. Without those horrid thoughts that nagged at his mind and tested his will.

God, this was dangerous. Never had he lost himself so completely, never had he let loose of that tether that held him in touch with what was real, never had he given so much of himself with total, uninhibited abandon.

Never had he made love to a woman who claimed to be London Danvers. His fists clenched and he drew dust