“Of course you’re bound to miss it sometimes. Magic was your passion. Your art.” She started to stroll slowly through the jumble of covered props, pausing here and there to peek beneath the canvas. “What will you do with these things?”
“I have absolutely no idea.” He watched her lift the cover off a stack of neatly coiled ropes. “I told you, there’s not much of a market for any of this stuff. One of these days I’ll have it hauled away.”
“No.” She turned quickly. “You shouldn’t destroy it. You should save it.”
“For what?”
She spread her hands. “For your children or your grandchildren. Who knows? One of them might inherit your passion. At the very least, they will be curious about your life as a magician.”
“I don’t have any plans to have children.”
“You don’t?” She looked surprised at first, and then she gazed at him with what could only have been described as compassion. “I’m so very sorry. I should never have said anything about children. Please forgive me.”
“For what?”
“I didn’t realize the full extent of your injury.” She glanced down at his leg and then hastily raised her eyes. “I had no idea it was so severe.” She broke off, floundering wildly. “It hadn’t occurred to me. I never gave it any thought, actually. Not after that kiss at the beach. I just assumed . . . Please, let’s change the subject. Can’t you see I’m absolutely mortified?”
Understanding finally dawned. He walked toward her and came to a halt a few inches away. He set the cane aside and very deliberately framed her face between his hands.
“I’d like to make one thing clear,” he said. “I’m somewhat damaged but the damage was not that extensive.”
“Oh. I see.” She swallowed hard and came up with a shaky smile. “I’m so glad.”
“So am I. And never more so than right now.”
He closed the last bit of distance between them, giving her plenty of opportunity to slip away. She did not step back. Instead she gripped his shoulders with both hands as though to keep herself upright.
“Oliver,” she whispered. “This probably isn’t a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
And then, in a rush of heat and sensual energy, she released his shoulders, wound her arms around his neck, and kissed him with dizzying urgency, kissed him as if she wanted him—craved him—more than she wanted anything or anyone else in the world.
As if she wanted him almost as much as he wanted her.
The fire roared through him, hot, fierce, soul-stirring. The ice that had formed a protective shield around him during the past two years thawed. The glacier melted and became an avalanche of desire.
The eternal gloom in the storage locker was transformed into a hidden world made to welcome lovers.
Magic, Oliver thought. The real thing.
Somehow he managed to get both of them down onto one of the tarps that he had pulled off the mirrors.
“Oliver,” Irene said.
His name was a breathless whisper on her lips, filled with wonder and amazement.
He did not even try to speak because he knew that if he did, whatever he managed to say would sound incoherent. Instead he kissed her again, drinking in the hot, sweet taste of her.
And then he was fumbling with her clothing. An eon passed before he got the fastening of her silky brassiere undone. Another wave of hunger crashed through him when he finally cupped the sweet, gentle curves of her breasts. He kissed one tight, firm tip. She made a soft, desperate sound, arched against him, and sank her nails into his back.
He unfastened her trousers and pushed them down over her hips. She slipped her feet out of her shoes, and then the trousers were gone and she was left wearing only a pair of panties.
She started to undo his shirt but her fingers trembled. He lost patience and levered himself to a sitting position for long enough to get rid of his shoes and his trousers.
He was wearing briefs, the new style of men’s underwear. The garment did little to conceal his rigid erection. But it was the wicked scar on his thigh that Irene reached out to touch, not the portion of his anatomy that ached to be clasped in her fingers.
“You could have been killed,” she said. She sounded stunned. “I mean, I knew your wound must have been bad, but I didn’t realize—”
The shocked sympathy in her words was maddening.
He captured her hand and very deliberately moved it from the scar to the front of his briefs, making her aware of his need.
“I could have been killed, but as it happens, I wasn’t,” he said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather move on to a more interesting subject.”