The Return of Antonides: Christmas at the Castello(33)

"'I love you, damn it'?" Holly echoed.

He raked a hand through his hair. "You know what I mean! It's more than  an itch, Holly. It's a future. You feel it. You know you do." He  reached out and caught her by the arm, hauling her against him. "You  love me, too."                       
       
           



       

Holly didn't deny it. She didn't fight him. Couldn't. She wanted him too much.

She knew the depth of her foolishness, then. She had lied to herself  when she'd believed she could have these few weeks with Lukas and walk  away from him satisfied and unscathed. She had thought that being aware  was being in control. She was wrong. It would hurt.

But staying would hurt worse. She had to go.

But not yet. Not without this-this touch of his lips, the warmth of his  arms around her, the silkiness of his hair threaded through her  fingers, his hands skimming down the zip on her sexy dress, then easing  it off her shoulders, letting it slither to a pool at her feet.

"You love me," Lukas whispered against her ear. "And I love you."

Then he lifted her and carried her into the bedroom and laid her gently  on the bed. His eyes were hooded, the skin taut across his cheekbones,  his lips barely parted, breathing softly and close-so close she could  feel the heat of his breath on her cheek.

She took his face between her hands and ran her thumbs across his  brows, then across those sharply sculpted cheekbones, memorizing each  detail before pressing her lips to his.

Lukas groaned. He toed off his shoes, then sat up, fumbling to drag off his tie and undo the buttons of his shirt.

Holly's hands wrapped his, held them still. "Let me. Please." Her throat ached as she spoke.

Lukas let out a harsh breath. "Go ahead then."

She took her time, slipped the tie off his neck, then with fingers  almost as unsteady as his, she undid the buttons one by one, tugged his  shirttails out of his trousers and pulled it off, then skimmed his  undershirt over his head. Pressing kisses to his chest, she brought her  hands down to his belt buckle, worked it open, slid a hand in to caress  him.

"Hol'," he warned, his hips surging against her. She would have taken  longer, would have had him as strung out as she had been that night so  many years ago. But Lukas was done with that. His patience gone, he  peeled off his trousers and shorts, shed his socks and bore her back  onto the bed.

Then he had his way with her, took his time, kissed his way from her  breastbone to the apex of her thighs. He settled between her legs and  skimmed his fingers up them, then parted her, touched her, stroked her.

Holly tried to hold still, but couldn't. She twisted beneath the  friction of his fingers as they heightened her pleasure. And then he  moved over her, came down to her and entered her fully, and the two of  them were one.

For an instant he held himself still, his gaze dark and intense bare  inches above hers. "I love you, Holly. I've always loved you." The words  were harsh and hoarse. They seemed dragged from the depths of his  being. Holly's fists clutched the sheets, her toes curled as he began to  move. Slowly. Deeply. As if he were touching the very core of her  being.

If she let him, he could touch her there. She knew it. She nearly  sobbed with the knowledge. She twisted, matching his thrusts, letting go  of the sheet to rake her fingernails down his back, then clutching him  close as he drove them both over the edge.

She cried out. She said his name.

He slumped against her, his body sweat-slick, his heart hammering so  hard she could feel it against her own. He lifted his head and looked  down at her, a hint of a smile on his lips. "So," he said raggedly, "you  want to argue with that?"

Holly couldn't argue. She couldn't even speak. She just looked at him,  drank him in. Then she shut her eyes and breathed deeply, held him  close.

* * *

The sun was high in the sky when Lukas woke. He knew where he was,  tangled in the sheets of Holly's bed. He remembered the passion, the  intensity, the love they had shared. And he smiled, recalling how she'd  simply shut her eyes and gone to sleep beneath him. He'd lain there,  savoring the feel of her body, nearly boneless now, slumbering beneath  him. Finally, he'd rolled off, but only to tuck her against his chest  and spoon his legs behind hers.

He sighed with contentment, then stretched and rolled over to reach for her again.

He was alone.





D1





CHAPTER TEN

SHE WAS IN the kitchen. Or in the bathroom. She'd gone to her office. Or maybe down to the gallery to work.

Lukas bolted out of bed, then told himself that the flare of panic he'd  felt at finding her gone was nothing more than an overactive  imagination.

She hadn't left him. She couldn't have.

But it turned out his imagination was better informed than all his  rationalizations. He found a note on the kitchen counter. As he picked  it up, his hand shook.

Lukas, thank you for everything. I won't see you again before I go.  It's better this way. I'll have a mover pack my things and store them.  I'm sure you won't want to store my stuff. I can't tell you how much I  appreciate all you did for me. PS: don't forget those kids at St.  Brendan's will still need you. Thanks, Holly                       
       
           



       

Lukas's fist crumpled the letter. He felt gutted. He felt hollow. He felt sick. His throat was tight. His eyes stung.

So he was wrong again. She didn't love him, after all.

* * *

It was the first day of the rest of her life. And then it was the second. And then the third.

But no matter how hard Holly tried, she couldn't seem to live in the  moment. She had spent the whole last week of her life in New York out at  her mother's on Long Island. She told herself it was the right thing to  do. It was what she'd always intended. It didn't have anything to do  with leaving Lukas's at the crack of dawn so she wouldn't have to face  him in the clear light of day.

She was doing the right thing, she told herself over and over. She was  doing what she'd planned-and she was making things easier for Lukas. He  might think he wanted to marry her, but he didn't mean it.

He could marry anyone-the remarkable, sophisticated, elegant Grace  Marchand, for example. If he didn't want to marry a paragon like Grace,  he certainly wouldn't want to marry her! She told herself that every  day, too. And by the end of the week at her mother's, she had done a  reasonably good job of convincing herself that was the truth. Besides,  she was eager to get to Hawaii. That was something else she repeated  again and again.

Her mother wasn't convinced. She looked worried every time she glanced  Holly's way. "Are you sure you're all right?" she asked Holly.

"I'm fine," Holly assured her.

"Because you don't look very happy."

"I'm happy," Holly lied.

She would be-in time. It would be a relief when she got to Hawaii and  started her training. She just needed something new and different-a new  challenge to find herself.

Hawaii was different. All balmy breezes and sunshine. And the training  was thorough and demanding and thought-provoking. Or it would have been,  Holly was sure, if she'd been thinking about it. She didn't.

She thought about Lukas.

She showed up dutifully to every talk and had a hard time paying  attention to a word that was said. In her mind, she kept seeing Lukas.  She went to language classes and practiced and found herself wondering  which ancient languages Lukas knew. She remembered the night of her prom  when he'd confessed he liked studying Latin. She knew he even  translated old documents sometimes.

"To keep my hand in," he'd said, then added wryly, "And my brain."

It had prompted her once to look him up in some scholarly indexes and  she'd discovered he was there, that while he'd been out digging in the  dirt with Skeet, he'd spent his evenings on ancient Sanskrit and Greek  texts.

Every evening they prepared and ate local foods from the island she  would be going to. It was a new program, an attempt to get them  acclimated, to help them land on their feet. And while it was  interesting and she learned it, it didn't stir her blood the way  watching Lukas in the kitchen had.

Her mouth watered when she thought about the spaghetti he'd made. He  had half a dozen recipes he'd got from his mother and grandmother that  he had fixed for her, too. "You don't have to do all the cooking," he'd  told her. "Or we can do it together. Then we can do this while we're  waiting for the water to boil," he'd said with one of his lopsided  grins. And then he'd kissed her.

She ached remembering how Lukas had used almost any excuse to kiss her.  She ached remembering the feel of his silky hair beneath her fingers,  his rough, whiskered jaw rubbing against her cheek. She ached whenever  she thought about the way he always knew where to touch her-and how he  could let go and allow her to learn what pleased him.