Bride of the Tiger by Heather Graham (best large ereader .txt) 📗

Tara stepped across the room to the camouflaged door; it opened to her touch. The chill hit her as she stepped out. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself but did not think to return for her coat.

Night had come in full. There were plants on the balcony, fragrant from a recent rain. The sky seemed a blanket of velvet, and she had the feeling that she was wandering in that velvet.

He came up behind her, offering her a fluted stem glass from behind. She clutched it and sipped from it too quickly. Almost like a drowning man reaching for straws…

He touched her then. His body, the length of it behind her. His hand upon her shoulder pulling her close against him. His fingers stroking her neck. His breath falling upon her with warmth.

Tingling, rippling sensations played havoc throughout her. He simply stood there, and she felt liquid. She wanted him.

She closed her eyes. It had been two years. Two years since that horrible last time with Tine. Two years since she had felt that everything inside her had died, that she could never want anyone again, that she could never feel again…

She was afraid. Eager, anxious, nervous—and afraid.

“I’ve ordered dinner,” he murmured, and she nodded.

He pointed over her shoulder to the stars. “Ursa Major. Perseus. Cassandra.”

“You know them all?”

“Most. You learn the stars when you sail a lot. On a ship, in the middle of the ocean, it’s as if they’re all that exists. You feel very small.”

“I can’t believe you would ever feel small.”

“Any man can feel small.”

He paused, lightly rubbing his cheek against her hair, inhaling its clean fragrance. The night, the sea, the stars. They should have been a perfect opening, he thought. He could have quizzed her about sailing, asked her about Caracas.

No. He couldn’t. Something had touched them. Something unique. He could no more end it than he could cut his own throat. He felt her tension; he felt the need to walk on eggshells, to hold the magic.

She sipped her wine and said nothing. For the longest time they stood there, staring at the stars, silent. And through all that time it grew. The knowledge, the awareness. His hard body against hers. Her soft one leaning against his.

At last she heard a little buzzer. He excused himself. Through the glass panes Tara saw two men arrive with silver serving dishes.

She turned back to study the night and sip her wine. Seconds later, Rafe was back. The men were gone. He led her back in and seated her, filling her wineglass again, dexterously removing lids from chafing dishes and filling her plate—seafood tonight. A thick bisque of shrimp and scallops and langoustines. Delicate puffs of rolls. Asparagus salad.

“You serve food superbly,” she told him, trying to joke.

“I’ve worked in food service. I cook superbly, too.”

“How commendable—if it’s true.”

He laughed. “Someday you can judge for yourself.”

He sat down, and they lifted their wineglasses to each other.

It was then that she began to tremble. Really tremble, so that her glass tilted precariously.

She didn’t know that her face had turned pale, that her hair was sun gold, her lips rose red against it.

Quickly, anxiously, he was on his feet. More quickly still, he was at her side, on one knee, rescuing her glass, taking her hands in his.

Fire, electricity, all the tension of the evening leaped between them. He looked into her eyes.

“You’re afraid of me,” he murmured.

“I’m just…afraid.”

“I’ll take you home.” He started to rise.

“No!” She caught his hand; she still quivered. She lowered her head and idly inspected his fingers. And then she looked at him with such whimsical, wistful appeal that it seemed his heart had stopped.

“Will you be tender? Patient?”

It was that softly voiced question, the haunted emotion that colored it, the melody of her voice, the quiver of it more than anything, that ensnared his heart completely. Not her beauty, not her form, not even the wonder of her scent.

It was all that she laid at his feet in that moment.

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her palm, then met her eyes again.

“Always,” he vowed.

CHAPTER 7

Stars were part of a dream, part of fantasy, part of illusion. A velvet-dark sky, rhinestoned with stars.

This wasn’t illusion; it was reality.

Tara didn’t know what else was in the apartment. Another bedroom, perhaps; a study. She only knew that there was a hallway that passed by the kitchen, that they came to a room where not only the window was of glass but also a pane of the ceiling above them.

She’d been only dimly aware of the hallway, vaguely, from some distant frame of consciousness. She was acutely aware of Rafe’s eyes, for during the passage from living room to bedroom, she never lost contact with his golden gaze. It was something from a dream: a tall, dark, handsome stranger sweeping her into his arms, carrying her up a short flight of steps from one level to the next.

And then there were the stars.

She saw them instantly, of course, when he laid her on the bed and stretched out beside her.

Larger than life, vivid, eclipsing any other sensation she had ever known.

Something, some logical swell of reason, warned her that he was a stranger—a man she barely knew. But raw emotion cried out against logic and won. She had known this was coming; she had wanted it. From the first time she had seen him, she had felt fascination, excitement, even a touch of fear at the power he had. And she was drawn….

She felt his hand on her cheek, and she swallowed slightly, bringing her eyes from the stars to meet his.

I barely know him! she reminded herself in desperation.

But it did no good, for she felt at that moment that she knew all that she needed to, that she knew him very well. She knew that he was somehow aware of her fear, that he would handle that fear like fine crystal and ease it