Page 17 of You'll Find Out
“Then who is to blame Mara? Who?”
“The system . . . the economics of the country . . . the Protestants . . . the Catholics . . . I don’t know.”
“Well, I do!” With his final damning admission, Shane swallowed the remainder of his drink. He looked to the bar, as if he intended to pour himself another, but put the empty snifter down in disgust. “Don’t you think that I’ve tried to convince myself that there was nothing I could have done to prevent this—that we were all just victims of fate? But late at night, when I have to face myself alone, I see those young eager faces, and I know that somehow I was a part of that tragedy!”
“Oh, Shane,” Mara murmured, hoping to somehow heal the wounds that had been festering within him. She reached out her hand and gently stroked his chin. Her fingers became moist from the tiny beads of sweat that had accumulated over his upper lip. He swallowed before continuing.
“And so . . . there was a mix-up of some sort. Everyone at the hospital thought I was Frank—and that Frank was me.” His voice was low. “We didn’t carry our identification on us—it was locked in the van, and the van was totaled as a truck braked to avoid colliding with some of the injured on the street. Our I.D., camera gear . . . film . . . clothing . . . everything was in the van. And somehow, at least for a while, in all of the confusion and aftermath of the explosion, the mix-up in our identities remained.”
Mara guessed the rest of the grisly story. “And Frank was killed?”
“He died before the ambulance could get him to the hospital.”
“Oh, God,” Mara breathed, and felt a nauseous rumbling in her stomach.
“That’s right, Mara. Dad didn’t lie to you. He actually thought that I was dead.”
“Oh, no . . .” Mara murmured, her fingers still caressing the firm line of his jaw. “So much has happened to us . . .”
“I know, Mara, I know.” His lips touched hers and she felt a yearning that she hadn’t known for years. His tongue outlined her lips and tasted the salt of her tears that had passed over her mouth. With a shudder, he groaned as he pulled her more closely to him. When he parted her lips and their tongues met, she felt a rush of molten desire well up from the deepest part of her and spread through her blood in thundering currents of fiery passion. His hands touched her hair, at first tentatively, and finally in heated desire as he wound the blond curls through his fingers and let his face nuzzle the length of her neck, exploring her throat, the shell of her ear, the supple muscles of her shoulders.
His fingers moved from her hair and down her neck in down-soft touches of intimate persuasion. She gasped for air as his thumb found the pulse at the base of her throat and outlined the delicate bone structure in warm circles of desire. The seductive movements created a whirlpool of heat, to churn desperately within her. She sighed against him and felt his own labored moan as he searched for and discovered the top button of her dress. He took the pearl button in his mouth and with ease forced it through the buttonhole. As he did so, his tongue touched deliciously against the rounded swell of her bosom, and her breast ached with need. His head dipped lower—to the next button. Once again the warm, wet tongue lapped enticingly at her breast, only to draw away in agonizing suspense. His fingers slowly opened the dress, parting it only enough to let him caress the ivory cleavage with his face.
“Oh, Shane,” Mara sighed, the warmth of ecstasy overtaking her. A nagging thought told her that she should stop him, but she found it impossible to deny that which she had wanted for four years. She wanted to enjoy the sweet surrender of her body to his, and forget, at least for the next few hours, all of the sadness and sorrow that had separated them over the past four years. She wanted to reach out to him and help salve some of the guilt that he had borne.
He sighed against her and pushed the clean angles of his face into the folds of her skirt. The same words that she remembered from their first night together echoed in her ears. “Mara, God, but I want you. I’ve ached for you for over four years,” he admitted in hot breaths that scorched through the silk fabric of her dress and caressed her legs in hot whispers. “Let me love you again.”
His hand reached under the hem of her skirt to embrace her thigh, and she groaned softly as her legs parted. “Let me love you, Mara,” he pleaded, and her answer was a breathless moan of yearning hunger. He stroked her thigh, and involuntarily she arched. He pulled at her panty hose and discarded them into a heap on the floor. And then, ever so gently, he petted her—letting his warm fingers brush against the length of her calves and thighs. “I want you, Mara, I want you as no man has ever wanted a woman.”
“Oh, God . . . Shane, I want you, too.”
With her soul shaking admission, he scooped her into his arms and lithely carried her out of the drawing room and up the expansive sweep of the staircase. She clung to him and placed liquid kisses against his neck, but at the top of the stairs he hesitated, and she nodded in the direction of her room. He carried her into the expansive bedroom and stopped near the door. He eyed the darkened room speculatively, and for an indeterminate minute he hesitated.
“Is this the bed you shared with Peter?” he asked harshly.
Her eyes, glazed with drugged passion, instantly cleared. “No,” she whispered. “I moved into this room . . . before he got sick.”
“Humph!” His dark eyes found hers, and after a flicker of doubt he carried her over to the bed. The down comforter sagged beneath their combined weight, and the cool satin felt smooth and welcome against her bare legs.
“You don’t know how much I’ve missed you,” Shane conceded, his breath dew-soft against her earlobe.
Her own breath, a prisoner in her lungs, escaped with the question that had been searing her mind for the past twelve hours. “Then why, Shane? Why didn’t you come back to me?”
Her blue eyes pleaded with him, and the picture she made—a lovely full-grown woman, still innocent in her own blushing manner—was too much for him to bear. The golden hair, tousled carelessly against the cool blue comforter, the flush of pink under the surface of her creamy complexion, and those eyes—blue as the morning sky and innocently mature. “It doesn’t matter—not anymore—I’m here now,” he whispered before pressing his lips, moist with hunger, against hers.
She let her lashes fall over her eyes, and let her body react to the exquisite rapture that he was evoking within her. Too many years had passed, and too many unanswered questions still lingered. An ugly corner of her mind nagged at her, but she ignored the thought and abandoned herself to him. Her hands caught in the thick black silkiness of his hair, and her fingers moved against his scalp, as if by their touch she could erase the pain of four desolate years.
His hands slid beneath the dress and let it slip silently to the floor. Warm palms pressed urgently against the contour of her spine and the supple roundness of her hips. He pulled her urgently to him, and she could feel his virile need and hunger burning in his loins. “Oh, Mara,” he whispered as he unclasped her bra and let her breasts, snowy white, fall unbound against him. “You’re more beautiful than I remembered.” Tentatively, he reached forward and circled one rounded swell with his finger, enticing a sweet ache in Mara that aroused her to even higher pinnacles of yearning.
His tongue, warm and soft, touched delicately against her breast and teased her nipple until she felt a swelling ache of torment. His hands and fingers massaged her, and finally, just as she thought she could endure no more of his teasing, the warm, moist cavern of his mouth closed over her waiting taut nipple, and a bursting wave of desire engulfed her. She shuddered with the force of her emotions.
Quickly, he discarded what was left of their clothing, destroying the flimsy barriers that kept her from him. She sucked in her breath as she looked upon him, long and lean and virile—exactly as she had remembered him and precisely as she had fantasized about him a hundred times over in her mind. Her fingers outlined the strong muscles of his back and abdomen, which glistened with a salty film of perspiration.
His voice broke through the night, in pure animal pleasure. “Oh, God, Mara . . . I can’t wait any longer . . .”
His head lowered and he kissed her abdomen and belly button, letting his tongue slide urgently over her skin. His hands pulled against her hips, until his face was covered with the warm creamy complexion of her abdomen. Soft purring noises escaped from her throat as he murmured her name over and over against her warm flesh.
Just as she thought she could endure no more of the tormented ecstasy, he pushed her legs apart with his knees and settled comfortably in the saddle of her soft hips. “I’m sorry, Mara, but I can’t wait any longer,” he groaned, as his face came up to hers and his lips sought the warmth of her mouth.
