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Zane stiffened. Tiffany saw the anger flash in his eyes, but he didn’t bother to refute her accusation. His lips thinned until they showed white near the corners. “You know there was no love lost between myself and your husband. If Ellery were alive today, I’d probably do what I could to ruin him.” He looked away from her and for a moment, pain was evident in the rugged planes of his face. “I despised the man, Tiffany, but you have to believe that I would never intentionally hurt you.”
“Even if Ellery is still alive?” she whispered.
He closed his eyes against the possibility. The craving for vengeance that had festered in his blood still poisoned him, but as he gazed down upon Tiffany’s face, Zane knew that he was lost to her. His hatred for Ellery couldn’t begin to match the intensity of his feelings for this proud, beautiful woman. “If Ellery Rhodes walked through the door tonight, I would still detest him. But—” he reached out and gently stroked her chin “—because of you, I would leave.”
Tiffany swallowed the uncomfortable lump forming in her throat and ignored the hot sting of tears against her eyelids. How desperately she longed to believe him. “Even if I asked you to stay?”
“What are you saying, Tiffany?” he asked, his face close to hers. “If Ellery is alive, would you leave him for me?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” she admitted, confused at the emotions warring within her. She ached to say yes and fall into Zane’s arms, never to look back. If only she could love him for now, this moment, and cast away any thought to the future, or the past.
Slowly he pulled her to him, and Tiffany felt his larger body press urgently against hers. She leaned on him, and he kissed her forehead. “I can’t make things different between us,” he said, gently smoothing her hair away from her face.
“Would you, if you could?”
“Yes,” he replied quickly as he had a vision of her lying naked in Ellery Rhodes’s bed. “I wish I’d known you long ago.”
In the privacy of the screened porch, with the fragrance of cherry blossoms scenting the air, nothing seemed to matter. It was a private world filled with only this one strong, passionate man. Tears pooled in Tiffany’s eyes and clung to her lashes. “I think that it’s better not to dwell on the past . . . or wish for things that could never be.”
He tilted her face upward with his hands, and his lips claimed hers in a kiss that was filled with the desperation of the moment, and the need to purge all thoughts of her husband from her mind.
Her lips parted willingly for him, and his tongue touched the edges of her teeth before slipping into her mouth and plundering the moist cavern she so willingly offered.
A raw groan of frustrated longing escaped from his lips as he molded his hungry body to hers. She wound her arms around him, held him close, clinging to him as if afraid he would leave her empty and bereft.
“Tiffany,” he whispered into her hair and let out a ragged breath. “Oh, Tiffany, what am I going to do with you?”
Whatever you want,she thought, returning his kiss with a bursting passion that had no earthly bounds.
His hands found the hem of her sweater and slipped underneath the soft fabric to press against the silken texture of her skin. Her breath constricted in her throat, and when his fingers cupped the underside of her breast she felt as if she were melting into him. A soft moan came from her throat as his fingers softly traced the lacy edge of her bra. She felt the bud of her nipple blossom willingly to his touch as his fingers slid slowly upward.
Zane’s breathing became labored, a sweet rush of air against her ear that caused tantalizing sparks of yearning to fire her blood. “Let me love you, sweet lady,” he pleaded, fanning her hair with his breath.
If only I could!Her desire throbbed in her ears, burned in her soul, but the doubts of the night filtered into her passion-drugged mind, and before she lost all sense of reason, she pulled away from him, regret evidenced in her slumberous blue eyes. “I . . . I think it would be best if we went inside,” she said raggedly, hoping to quell the raging storm of passion in her blood.
The tense lines along the edge of his mouth deepened. “You want me,” he said, holding her close, pressing the muscles of her body to his. “Admit it.”
Her heart was an imprisoned bird throwing itself mercilessly against her rib cage. She lost her sense of time and reason. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted a man,” she whispered, trying to pull free of his protective embrace. “But wanting isn’t enough.”
“What is?”
Love,her mind screamed, but the word wouldn’t form on her lips. How often before had she felt love only to see it wither and die? The love of Tiffany’s mother had been so fragile that Marie had left her only daughter in the care of a drunken father. Edward’s love hadn’t been strong enough to conquer the drink that eventually killed him, and Ellery . . . Ellery probably didn’t know the meaning of the word.
“I . . . I’m not sure,” she admitted, her voice quavering unexpectedly.
“Oh, hell,” Zane swore in disgust, releasing her. “Neither am I.” He looked thoroughly disgusted with himself, and he rammed his hands into his pockets, trying to quiet the fury of desire straining within him. The heat in his loins seemed to sear his mind. Never had he wanted a woman so painfully. He felt as if his every nerve was raw, charged with lust.
Tiffany stared at Zane until her breathing had silenced and her racing pulse had slowed to a more normal rate. She entered the house, and the smells of roast and cinnamon filled her nostrils. “Louise?” she called as she went into the kitchen. The plump woman with graying hair and a ready smile was extracting a deep-dish apple pie from one of the ovens. “I thought you were going out of town for the weekend.”
“Not until tomorrow.” Louise set the hot pie on the tile counter and turned to face Tiffany. “I thought maybe you could use a little help around here today.”
“You read the article in theClarion.”
Louise’s full mouth pursed into an angry pout. “Yep. I read it this morning and canceled my subscription before noon. That was the trashiest piece of journalism I’ve ever read. Rod Crawford should be strung up by his—” her eyes moved from Tiffany to Zane “—hamstrings.”
Tiffany smiled at the angry housekeeper. “You shouldn’t have canceled your subscription.”
“Humph. What I should have done was write a letter to the editor, but I suppose that would only make the situation worse, what with the publicity and all.”
