When Next We Love Read online

  For a second Derek pulled back, and in that time his eyes devoured her. They were a flame within themselves, and as they quickly roamed over her, Leigh felt her flesh begin to heat. Then his eyes met hers. They asked a mute question, which she answered with a strangled sigh, hurling herself back into his arms. Her thirst for him had to be quenched. She arched herself to him, relishing the feel of her soft breasts crushing into his chest, the grinding of their hips in instant and mutual need.

  “Derek, my love,” she pleaded.

  He needed no further urging. “Oh, honey,” he groaned, “you don’t know what you do to me.”

  But she did. As he shifted to take her, she opened to him like a bursting sunrise, and they melded together like molten lead. They were an inferno, feasting as if starved, and the ultimate consummation of their love burned with a fire more fierce than the sun’s and left them with a satisfaction and togetherness more thorough than the meeting of the sky and earth.

  And as Leigh slept in the serenity of her lover’s arms, she knew she would ask no more of life than the heaven he gave her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LEIGH SLEPT FITFULLY THROUGH the night, waking often to assure herself that Derek was still there beside her. He was, of course, his limbs entangled with hers, his arms possessively around her. She awakened fully to the bright light of early morning to find herself still curled comfortably along his length, his easy breathing in her ear, his head resting gently upon the auburn pillow of her hair.

  Derek awoke as she gently tried to free her hair. A slow, contented smile curved his lips and highlighted his lazy golden eyes. He stretched long fingers to caress her cheek. “Morning, love,” he whispered softly.

  “Morning,” she replied, subduing a sob that suddenly choked in her throat. He couldn’t really be hers. Not this golden giant who had sworn revenge with savage arrogance and then made her a prisoner of his heart while arousing undreamed of passions with his magnificent body. She clutched his hand and kissed it feverishly and rolled atop his deep bronze chest. “Oh, Derek …” she murmured into his neck. She almost said, “I love you,” but the words caught on her tongue. Their relationship was so very fragile! Ghosts still lay between them, ghosts that could easily destroy them. Not just the tangible spirit of Richard, but the other clouds he had created … doubt, mistrust, and fear.

  “What is it, Leigh?” Derek asked gently in return, stroking her hair in a comforting gesture. “Talk to me.”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. Just hold me.”

  He did, and then he made love to her, slowly, sweetly. And when she shuddered and lay happily content in his arms, he continued to caress lightly the silkiness of her skin with a tenderness that she knew belonged uniquely to her alone. She gave him a dazzling smile.

  “Derek, I have to know what’s going on,” she said, secure in his arms. “Something happened the day we left my house—something that changed everything. I need to talk to you, Derek, but I need you to be honest with me too.”

  His cat eyes were drawing a film, a shield, closing off from her as she spoke. “Leigh—” he began.

  “Don’t!” she protested. “Don’t shut me out! Can’t you see! We’ve been doing just that to one another all this time. Trust me, at least this once. Whatever it is, I can handle it. I really can, when you’re beside me.”

  Derek was no longer touching her. His hands were clasped behind his head and he stared up at the ceiling. “We have to be at the studio in less than two hours.”

  “A lot can be said in two hours.” Leigh knew she was pushing him, but fear drove her on. She had thought she could wait, take whatever golden moments were theirs and cherish them for just that—beautiful spaces of time that could linger forever in memory.

  But she couldn’t. She was terrified of whatever it was that lurked in Derek’s mind. Life had taught her the bitter lesson that love could turn sour, and if she stayed with Derek any longer, basking in the depth of emotion she felt for him, only to have it all snatched away, she would never survive the blow. Within her soul she would be a cripple. They had to straighten things out. She had to know that he loved her, and that his love was a commitment.

  “We have a tendency to argue when we talk,” Derek finally said, still watching the ceiling.

  “Damn!” Leigh muttered irritably. She was a nervous wreck and he was being completely evasive. “We can’t go on not talking.”

  “You’re already arguing.”

  “I’m not!” Leigh exploded.

  Derek whipped around with a strange savagery and planted his weight over Leigh’s with his fingers gripped into her shoulders and his golden gaze burning into hers. Tension worked tersely in his facial features and the veins corded and pulsed in the length of his neck. Leigh shivered; she had forgotten the power that he was composed of, the strength, determination, and will that lay coiled at all times within the sinewed frame she so loved.

  “All right, Leigh,” he enunciated crisply, “I’ll talk. But you won’t walk out if you don’t like what I’ve got to say. We’ve made a commitment. It isn’t on paper yet, and it isn’t legally binding. But we’ve made it, and you know it as well as I do.”

  Leigh stared into flaming golden eyes and nodded blankly. He was saying things she wanted to hear; why was his voice so intense and frightening? Didn’t he understand that all she needed to know was that he loved her and believed in her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with only her?

  As abruptly as he had pounced upon her, he moved away. His movements were erratic as he paced about the room, totally unself-conscious of his nudity, and as splendid and regal as a golden god of ancient times.

  “Richard didn’t have an accident,” he told her matter-of-factly. “He drove off that cliff on purpose. I talked to him the night before and I knew he was very upset about something. He kept mentioning ‘her’ and I naturally assumed he meant you. Then he started talking about the past. When we were kids growing up together. And he talked about meeting you and how the days we had spent with your dad by the sea had been the best in his life. He kept repeating over and over again that he had ‘missed the boat somewhere.’”

  Derek stopped his pacing and looked at Leigh. Her eyes were as round as saucers, her face frozen in shock. She had thought herself beyond pain from Richard, but she wasn’t. He had killed himself. She hadn’t seen what turmoil raged behind his cool aloofness; she hadn’t been there when he really needed her. No matter what had gone on between them, she should have been able to help him.

  “I told you this wouldn’t be easy.” Derek’s harsh voice broke through her remorse and the terrible guilt that washed over her in waves of agony. “But hear me out.” He drew a deep, ragged breath and turned to the window, unable to comfort her until he had finished. “I blamed you. I blamed myself for not realizing how depressed he was when we talked. His last request was that I watch out for you. I laughed it off. I told him that you were a survivor and that he would fall in love again. We had all been in and out of love a dozen times.

  “He told me good-bye and thanks. The next thing I heard was that he was dead. I wanted to strangle you. He was more than my partner, more than my friend. He was my brother. All those years when we were kids, when parental love meant boarding schools and an unspared rod, Richard and I had each other.”

  Derek’s tone went very soft. “We were both mesmerized when we met you coming from the ocean like an innocent Venus. Everything about you was fresh and wonderful. The love and respect in your home were totally alien to anything we had ever known. Richard was quick. I remember how awed you were when you realized who you were marrying. But it was he who had found something special, and he knew it. He just didn’t know how to handle it.”

  Leigh allowed her dazed eyes to focus on Derek. He was watching her now, and his eyes held only compassion. None of it made sense. He said he wanted to kill her, then he said that she was special. She didn’t understand, but she was too numb to care.

  With an impati
ent oath Derek strode back across the room and gripped both her hands. “Dammit, Leigh! I told you this wasn’t the time to go into all this and I’m making a terrible mess of it all. Listen to me! Pay attention to me! Now I’ve made you feel responsible and that’s not the case. I’m trying to make you understand the things I felt and why I behaved the way I did.”

  “I’m listening,” Leigh managed in a whisper.

  “I loved you even when you were my best friend’s wife. I knew I couldn’t have you, so I set you up on a little pedestal. I could be your friend, and I could be near you. I never allowed myself to think about you and Richard in bed … in one another’s arms. I told myself that one day I would find a woman like you, a woman I wanted to have my children, to live and grow with together, to shelter, to come to. You were perfection to me, your marriage heaven.

  “When Richard began to tell me you were running around and wanted out, I couldn’t accept it. I had to mask my feelings with hate and anger. After he died, I barely made the funeral. I swore I’d never see you again.

  “Then came Atlanta. I wanted it to be you; I was afraid that it had been you. It was gnawing me apart and I had to find out.” He ran a finger over her cheek, reverently tracing the fine lines as the timbre of his voice went deeper in a husky whisper. “And I had to have you again. I convinced myself that anything I did would be fair because you deserved whatever I could do for all that had happened to Richard. I knew that I could find a way to trap you if I could just get you here, and perversely, I really was interested in ‘Henry the Eighth.’ Then, when you came, I was a mess! I loved you, I hated you, I wanted you. It was almost a sickness. I needed to be close to you, to understand you, but I couldn’t stop myself from striking out, and I couldn’t let you go until I had come to terms with myself.”

  Leigh watched the strong tan fingers that were curled around her own. Derek was telling her that he loved her. She should be ecstatic. She knew now beyond a doubt now that he wasn’t another Richard, that his desire was also for the love and security of a total commitment that she craved.

  But she wasn’t ecstatic. She was chilled to the bone. Richard still lay between them, now more than ever. She had indirectly failed him and led to his suicide, and no matter what Derek said, in his heart he would never forgive her. She’d have to learn to forgive herself.

  “Why are you telling me this now?” she asked thickly. “We haven’t got a chance in the world—”

  “I’m telling you now because you insisted!” Derek grated, dropping her hands to grip her chin and bring her lifeless eyes to his. “And you could help a bit! I’m botching this entire thing because you’re not giving me a single response.”

  “What do I say? Yes, I didn’t understand Richard’s frame of mind and so I did nothing? What will that do? Nothing. We both have to learn to live with it—”

  “That’s the point I haven’t gotten to yet. You were not in the least responsible for Richard’s actions. I know that for a fact, but even if I didn’t, I would have realized by now that none of us can prevent a thing like that.”

  Leigh frowned, confused. “What?”

  “Richard left a letter for me in his desk. You never found it because you never went through his things. I was in the room that day to look through his phone book—I had forgotten my own number because I never dial it—and I found the note. He knew before he left for the West Coast that he wouldn’t return. He had a disease of the nervous system that would have slowly killed him, crippling him first, and he couldn’t bear to die that way. He didn’t want you to know. He said he had caused you enough pain and that you would be able to cope with an accident—an act of God—better than the truth.”

  The paralyzing dullness of shock suddenly receded from Leigh, and the floodgates of pain opened with a shudder and an agonized cry. “Oh, God! Derek! I didn’t know. I didn’t know! Why didn’t he come to me? He knew that I still loved him … that I would have done anything … he could have come to me …”

  “Leigh!” Derek’s arms were around her; they held her with infinite tenderness as she sobbed, her tears streaming into the mat of his chest. “Leigh, Richard did know those things. And he did love you—very much. It was that love that wanted to spare you any more grief. It’s all in the letter. He said that you had already suffered enough because of him. When enough time had passed, he wanted you to know.”

  He held her for a good hour while she cried, soft tears for the brilliant young man she had loved and hated, for the waste of his life, for the depth of his love for her that he had shown in his way at the end.

  Derek mourned with her. Old scars had been cut afresh, they were bleeding again. Yet now they could heal. In a strange way they had given Richard Tremayne back to one another.

  Leigh’s tears subsided and Derek gently wiped the dampness from her cheeks. “We go on from here,” he said softly.

  She nodded against his strength. “I know.”

  “I love you.”

  She nodded again.

  “I’m still a bastard.”

  It was a strangled sound, but close to a chuckle. “I know.”

  “We’re both going to make it—together.”

  The bedside phone rang shrilly and Derek automatically answered it, his eyes never leaving Leigh. He listened for a moment, then muttered, “Thanks, yes, we’re coming.” Replacing the receiver, he tilted Leigh’s chin again. “Hey! You promised me you could handle this. I’m beside you, and I love you. Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” Leigh attempted to smile but her effort fell flat. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “I can cancel the session,” Derek offered, his eyes denoting his obvious concern over her lethargy.

  “No … no,” she said faintly.

  “Then we have to go. That was James to tell us we’re running very late.”

  Leigh rose, feeling like a zombie. “I’ll just hop in the shower.”

  Derek retrieved his jeans from where they had landed on the floor the night before and slid them over his long muscled legs. “I’ll hop into my room then.” He grimaced ruefully. “Tonight we’ll pick a room and transfer all of our clothing into one spot.”

  Leigh tried for another smile. “Yes.”

  Derek walked over to her and enveloped her naked shoulders in his arms, relishing the silky touch of her feminine skin against his. His lips brushed her forehead. “You could say something now, after all I’ve poured out to you. Something like, ‘I love you too.’”

  Leigh stared at him, her eyes still saucer-size and glassy. “I do love you, Derek. I have for a long, long time.”

  “Did you love me in Atlanta?”

  “Yes.” Leigh buried her head into his chest and rubbed her cheek against the coarse red-gold hairs that tickled her nose, “but I didn’t know it then.”

  Derek groaned and his frame tautened against hers; his flesh became warmer. “I have to get out of here. We’re going to finish the tracks today, the pictures tomorrow, and then get out of here. I want you all to myself.” He clutched her tightly to him, pulled away and made a hasty retreat.

  Leigh walked into the shower, still dazed. What was wrong with her? she wondered. She was shocked by the circumstances surrounding Richard’s death. That was natural. But Derek was right; she couldn’t have changed anything. Still, it was as if a wound had been ripped back open. She had loved Richard; she had been his wife for three years. He should have come to her. Yet in the end he had chosen a strange type of nobility. He had shielded her from pain; he had even made a vague attempt to clear her of the accusations he had made.

  She had told Derek that she could handle whatever troubled him. And she could. It was something else that was bothering her, something she couldn’t quite define. There would be time, she told herself philosophically. The man she loved returned her feelings and they would have all the time in the world.

  With Derek’s determination behind them, they completed the final tracks by five o’clock. Derek had last-minute details to work out wit
h the photographer so he sent Leigh home with Roger. “If I’m late, don’t wait up. Tomorrow may be hectic.”

  Derek was late, very late, but Leigh couldn’t sleep anyway. She prowled the house nervously, chiding herself for not settling down. In the last two days her world had made a marvelous turnabout. She should be as happy and as content as a bird.

  “There’s just so much we have left to discuss!” she told herself aloud. “Plans … more admissions and confessions …”

  Gravel finally crunched in the driveway and Leigh knew that Derek had returned. She raced across the marble to the. door, eager to greet him now that she had gotten over her initial shock. She had been so cold that morning! And in between all the sadness he had had to relate he had also told her many wonderful things. He had loved her as long as she had loved him. …

  The door swung open and Derek’s cat-gold gaze brightened at the sight of her. She had showered and changed into a lingerie set of misty blue gauze, and his frank appraisal and sensuous smile told her that her efforts were approved of and appreciated.

  “I told you not to wait up,” he murmured after a deep kiss that stole the breath from both of them, “but I’m glad that you did.”

  “We have a lot of lost time to make up for!” Leigh answered, grinning as the now-familiar heat he could produce raced through her limbs. His trim hips instinctively wedged closer to hers, and color suffused her face at the sure proof against her abdomen that she could arouse him as easily as he could her.

  “I’m all for making up for lost time!” he breathed to her earlobe, nibbling as he did so. His lips, growing more urgent and demanding as they traveled, moved erotically along her throat and on to the cleavage enticingly displayed by the negligee, Leigh let escape a sigh that might have been a purr as her body responded to his demands with loving skill. “We’re standing in the hallway,” she told him dreamily. “I think we should move. This little scene could seriously endanger James’s sense of dignity should he awaken and stumble upon it.”