Forbidden Dreams Read online

  She came back toward him, drying her hands on a towel and not looking at him. She seemed to be pretending he didn’t exist as a person, even when she crouched before him and placed one hand on his knee to steady herself.

  He dumped half a teaspoonful of sugar onto the table as his body reacted to her touch with shocking swiftness. Drawing in a deep breath, he recalled the same swift response to her in the night, and suddenly he remembered kissing her, holding her pinned against his chest, rolling her under him and wanting her so badly, he’d thought he’d die if he couldn’t have her. He remembered her lips parting, her tongue seeking his, at first shyly, then with a boldness that heated his blood as he relived it. Lord, she’d been soft … her skin, her breasts, her hair, even the scent of her had been soft … and sweet and—“Damn!” he yelled as she snatched up the tape, pulling out leg hairs by the roots. But at least the sharp sting had taken care of his erotic response to her touch.

  “Sorry,” she said with a quick glance at him. “It would have been worse if I’d taken the tape off an agonizing inch at a time.” He didn’t think she sounded particularly sorry as she gently examined the edges of his wound and the flesh surrounding it.

  “You heal quickly,” she said, her head still down. He wished she’d look at him, wished she’d remove those long, slender, trembling fingers from his leg before the blanket over his lap could no longer hide his reaction.

  “Maybe your kiss made it better,” he said before he could bite back the words.

  “What?” Her head jerked up, and she stared at him, her eyes full of disconcertion, anger, and … was it shame? Why should she be ashamed of kissing him? Unless … was she involved with someone else? “I thought you were too delirious to remember that,” she said in a thin voice as she bent her head again.

  “I don’t forget when someone like you kisses me.”

  She flared beautifully. “I didn’t kiss you, O’Keefe. You kissed me.” She slapped the new dressing in place, briskly sticking down the tape. Dragging the blanket back over him, she added, “Or more accurately, I’d have to say you kissed someone named Sharba. At any rate, you had no right to do it. If you hadn’t been injured and burning up with fever, I’d have clocked you a good one.”

  He clamped a hand around her wrist. Sharba? He’d talked about Sharba? He must have been raving! “Sharba lies a long way back in my past,” he said. In an attempt to distract her from that subject, he went on. “Not as far back as you do, though. And if I kissed her instead of you in my delirium, I’d better remedy that. Every woman deserves to be kissed for her own sake.”

  Besides, he thought, looking at her snapping green eyes, her flushed cheeks, and her taut body, crouched as if she were about to spring up and flee, he wanted to kiss Shell Landry again, and not for old times’ sake.

  “Just who the hell are you, O’Keefe?” Her hostility whipped him as she jumped to her feet and tried to twist her wrist free. “What have you come here for? What do you want?”

  “Want?” he said, drawing her between his legs and snaking an arm around her waist. “I want to get to know you again.” He tugged her down until she half sprawled across his uninjured leg. Her one hand was braced behind him on the back of the chair, the other on his shoulder, and her eyes were wide and startled. “As to what I’ve come for, Shell,” he added, realizing something that hadn’t occurred to him until that moment, “I’ve come to stake a claim.”

  And then he staked it.

  Shock held Shell immobile for the first few seconds. Then something else did. His firm lips parted hers with forthright determination, and sighing, she opened for the thrust of his tongue, welcoming it, accepting it, accepting him, not knowing why she did, only that she must. He tasted of apple juice and coffee—and man.

  Unlike the kiss of the previous night, Shell knew from the outset, and not just because he’d said so, that this one was all for her. He was doing exactly what he’d said, staking a claim, but what claim? And why on her?

  She wanted to demand answers, wanted to struggle, but her mind whirled in a chaotic medley of thought and emotion that left her reeling, needing to cling to something solid. The only solid object at hand, though, was him.

  As his hold gentled, becoming almost unbearably tender, her unease was swept away by an uncanny sense of rightness, a feeling that she should melt into him, lean against his firm chest. She wanted to nestle close, closer, offer more of herself, because he seemed to be giving all of himself through the heat of his lips, the gentleness of his touch, the strength of his arms.

  He cradled her face with one hand, fingers stroking down under her chin and across her throat in a caress she was utterly unable to resist. It sent joy singing through her blood, and a heavy, hot pulsing along her nerve endings that centered in the very core of her, making her want—and making her wanton. As if he knew that, he slowed the caress, putting even more sensuality into it. He curved his entire palm around under her chin, his long, strong fingers sliding up under her hair, his thumb making small circles below her ear as a low, intense hum of appreciation emanated from him.

  Had anyone ever touched her like that, with an innate certainty that it was the right caress for her, as if it were designed with Shell Landry, her needs and desires, in mind? And how did he know what was exactly right for her, when she wasn’t even sure she knew herself? Had that specific touch always been the one that would arouse her faster and deeper than any other? She couldn’t remember, didn’t want to think. She wanted only to have his fingers go on and on, stroking over her skin in exactly that way. She wanted this kiss never to end, but to taste him, feel him, breathe in his scent, forever.

  The scent of him made her dizzy, tempted her to breathe deeper and deeper to capture it all. It was faintly like lime, or was it leather? Or perhaps some exotic, foreign spice? The flexing of the powerful muscles of his arm, the hardness of his thigh under her hips, urged her to dissolve into his embrace, to become one with him.

  Something compelled her to stroke his skin, to know him as he knew her, and she lifted a hand to his face. She rubbed the raspy stubble on his jaw, traced the shape of his nose, the straight line of an eyebrow, the curve of an ear, then slid her hand down to his throat, finding a wild, powerful pulse there. She glided her palm across his chest as she had the night before, but this time she did it all for herself. Not to cool him, not even to heat him, though his erect nipple and ragged breathing told her she was doing that. The need to feel his body against her hand was paramount, so she stroked, taking and receiving something good, something special, something that she knew deep inside she deserved.

  It was he who broke the kiss, slowly, reluctantly, pulling his head back from her. His eyes, dazed now, stared into hers.

  “Oh, man …” he said softly, but with an emphasis she could fully understand. His smile was what he’d said, staking a claim, but what claim? And why on her?

  She nodded and stood, seeking a chair on the far side of the table before her legs collapsed under her. Never taking her eyes off him, she simply sat there, wondering what had come over her.

  Neither spoke until Skeena scratched eagerly at the back door. Shell leaned over and opened it, letting in the wet animal. Skeena licked her hand, then stood stiff-legged and wary, staring at Jason O’Keefe. Finally, perhaps sensing that Shell was in no danger, she went to her food and water dishes and began slurping and crunching with canine greed and abandon.

  Dragging herself out of her befuddlement, Shell ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. It felt completely different from his tongue, but the taste of him was still there, making her insides quiver. She clamped her arms one over the other, hands clutching her elbows. Her crossed arms almost contained the shivers that continued to ripple through her as she relived the sensations that kiss had aroused. Almost.

  Dammit, what is wrong with you? she asked herself yet again. Her acceding to that kiss had probably given the man far too many false impressions of her. Now that a good, sturdy table separated her f
rom him, she’d better start reeducating him. To say nothing of her own heart, which still thudded much too rapidly. She had to breathe deeply several times before she could speak, injecting a hint of acid into her tone.

  “I guess,” she said, “it hasn’t cropped up recently in conversation in California, maybe because it’s been known for so long by so many, but caveman tactics are considered passé.”

  She tried to decide if there had been a tinge of regret in her voice for the passing of caves and cavemen. She hoped not.

  He grinned unrepentantly. “It can hardly be considered a caveman tactic to take what I was promised a long, long time ago.”

  She tilted her chin higher. “Promised? By whom?”

  “By you, darlin’. One warm summer afternoon.”

  “What?”

  He smiled. It was a nice smile. A bit crooked, it creased the skin bracketing his mouth and filled his eyes with dancing lights. It was far and away the most disarming smile she had ever seen, and she was hard put not to return it.

  “I promised you a kiss? When?”

  “Well, it was a while back,” he confessed ruefully. “So I guess I can’t blame you for having forgotten. You said, ‘When we’re all growed up, we’ll get married, and you can kiss me, and we’ll have lots of babies.’ ” He grinned again, then leaned across the table and touched her face, drawing his fingertips from her temple to her chin and down her throat, leaving her tense and shivering outwardly and all loose and warm inside. She was not sure it was a feeling she liked, but on the other hand, she didn’t think she wanted it to stop, either. “But I do remember,” he said, “so can you blame me for collecting?”

  She said nothing, waiting for him to continue. It was completely out of her range now. He was spouting a lot of garbage. She hoped. When could she have met him before? In another life? She would remember a man like this. Forever. Even through the veils of other lives.

  “I can only hope,” he went on, “that that kiss didn’t have such a drastic effect. As you may have noticed, we aren’t married.”

  “Yes.” She drew an unsteady breath and forced her tone to impart tartness. “You should be careful with your kisses, if they have that result.”

  “Honey, I’m always careful. And you must be, too, since you’re close to thirty and I don’t see any of those babies crawling around the floor.”

  “How could you possibly know my age?”

  “By extrapolation.”

  She looked at him questioningly, and he explained. “By deducting three-and-a-half years from my own age. You were that much younger than me when you made me that promise, so I assume you still are. Unless you’re one of those women who stops having birthdays at twenty-five?”

  “Not me,” she said. “I enjoy birthday gifts too much to do that.”

  He laughed. “Good for you.” He touched her face again. “I’ll have to remember that.”

  Shell jerked away. “All right, when did I make such a rash promise to a man I don’t even remember? And why?”

  “When? More than twenty-three years ago. Why? Because you’d just put a handful of baby crabs in your mouth, and I fed you the last of my candy to make you feel better.”

  She stared at him as memories swirled around in her mind, solidified, clarified, brightened. “Jasie?” she whispered, as if tasting the word. “Jasie … Not Jason but … Jasie.” She shook her head as she looked at him. “O’Keefe doesn’t ring any kind of bell.”

  “Maybe you never knew my last name.”

  “Maybe. Good grief … such a long time ago. Sand castles, chocolate-covered raisins, and—” She gulped. “Crabs.” She shuddered with remembered disgust. “Oh, yuck!”

  Gazing at each other, they shared a moment’s laughter, warm and friendly, connected by a vivid image dredged up out of the past.

  Jase’s heart did strange things as Shell’s laughter rose in an irrepressible tide, bubbling out of her as she stared at him in mingled delight and disbelief. She smiled as her laughter died, a big, wide, all-over-her-face smile that lit up her eyes and crinkled her nose, and Jason O’Keefe came closer to falling in love than he ever had before.

  That day, Shell remembered, she’d sat on the beach in her yellow bathing suit—it had had ruffles around the rump and across the top, and strings that tied behind her neck—and built a castle with Jasie on a little patch of sand in front of a small house very similar to the one they sat in now. Lord! A whole continent away. A whole lifetime ago. A summer of magic and joy and castles in the sand.

  Castles, of course, had needed occupants, and the tiny crabs, no bigger than a child’s thumbnail, that lived under the rocks at the edge of the sand spit were available. Jasie had been sharing his chocolate-coated raisins with her, and she, off in one of her frequent flights of fancy, with one hand full of candy, other full of crabs, had momentarily forgotten which hand was which …

  “After you’d spit out the crabs,” Jase reminded her, “and washed out your mouth and finished all my raisins to take the taste away, you told me you loved me best of all and that when we were big, we’d get married, and I could kiss you, and then we’d have lots of babies.”

  She looked at him in wonder. “I was six.”

  He nodded. “Six-and-a-half as you frequently reminded me. And I was ten.” They gazed at each other, and Shell could almost feel the heat of the summer sun. She remembered the long days of play, the feel of the sand, the scent of salt and driftwood and smoke from beach fires along the Rhode Island shore. She closed her eyes to savor the memories, recalling, too, the taste of ripe, juicy peaches, the slow, flooding sweetness of strawberries crushed against the roof of her mouth, the delight of chocolate-covered raisins and having a friend for the very first time in her life.

  “Jasie … I imagine you outgrew that name a long time ago.”

  He chuckled. “No one else ever called me that. I’m sure if there’d been other kids around, I’d have made you stop, or at least pretended my middle name was Charles or something, and that ‘Jasie’ was ‘J.C.’ ”

  “I’m sure if there’d been other kids around no ten-year-old boy would have been caught dead playing with a six-year-old girl.” Smiling, she shook her head. Of course there had been other friends since, other summers and other treats, but that summer had been special, not only because of having a friend. It had given her the one thing she had never enjoyed before—total privacy and her mother all to herself. No one had known who she was, or more important, who her mother was.

  There had been no huge Hollywood house with its servants and security, no on-location trailer. There had been no governess, no big car with its driver who took her mother away every morning before Shell awoke and sometimes didn’t return her until after Shell was in bed. There had been no cameras, no flashbulbs dazzling her eyes, no prying questions or gushy reporters wanting to touch her hair or fluff out her dress or admire her and ask her if she wanted to grow up to be exactly like her beautiful mama.

  She opened her eyes and found Jase still gazing at her. She forced a smile. Inside, a clamoring voice asked if he remembered her mother, too, and if he had, as he matured, become aware of exactly who it was he remembered? And if so, what did he intend to do with the knowledge?

  Panic rippled through her as she searched his face. She found nothing there to say her fears were rational, but nothing, either, to say they weren’t. Oh, heaven help her—even if he hadn’t yet realized the significance of his recalling that summer, he might in time, and then what? Could he be trusted?

  How strange that he was the first person to come out of her childhood like this. How protected she—they—had been the past twenty years, how secure they’d become, thinking they had only to guard against the obvious dangers. And now, because one man remembered a summertime friend from long ago, was all the fine security they’d built in danger of coming apart?

  “Imagine,” she said, “your remembering me and my crabs all these years.”

  “Imagine my remembering your saying
you’d marry me.” His dark eyes danced. “Of course, that was the first time a woman ever proposed marriage to me. I guess that’s not something a guy forgets.”

  “How many women have proposed marriage to you since?”

  He shrugged. “No so very many.”

  “I’m sure a few have wanted to.” Oh! How gauche! Shell would have given a lot to be able to recall those words.

  He looked away, and the name Sharba suddenly hung between them like a piece of soiled laundry, ruining the mood of camaraderie they’d been building with their memories. Had Sharba proposed marriage to him? Shell wondered. Had he proposed marriage to her? Why had Sharba left, and if she ever came back, would Jason O’Keefe reach out to her as he had the night before, clinging to her as if he’d hold her forever? And, dammit, what did it matter?

  “You know,” she said, breaking the uncomfortable silence, “it’s funny, but when you first arrived last night, I thought there was something familiar about you. It drove me crazy, especially once I knew your name and still couldn’t make the link between a vaguely familiar face and the reality of a man named Jason O’Keefe. How could we have been such good friends and known so little about each other—such as last names?”

  “I knew yours, but maybe you never needed to know mine because we were kids, and children are very accepting of one another. They don’t require details. For instance, I had no idea that summer that I was playing with a little heiress.”

  Though his face became slyly thoughtful, his eyes laughed secretly as he said, “Hmm, now that I think of it, maybe I should demand my rights as your affianced husband. After all, if you refuse, it could be considered breach of promise. Might be worth a great deal.”

  Her jaw tensed. “I’d say that no court in the land would expect me to uphold a promise I’d made before I was old enough to cross the street alone.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. Worse luck.” He waggled his brows. “Damn. I’ve never tried blackmail as a means of courting a lady.”