True to her word, the following afternoon found her head in the oven, her hands scrubbing. On a cold surface the spray was only marginally successful. Following the can’s directions, she heated the oven, then set to it again. As she scrubbed diligently, her mind wandered. It came to her suddenly that she hadn’t thought of law all weekend! In her adult life, this was a first! In case of emergency, Susan knew of her whereabouts. Yet, nothing had interrupted the bliss she had shared here with Sloane this weekend. The thought of its end, of returning to the city tonight, brought with it a knot of regret. Convinced of Sloane’s love, she knew she would see him again and often. But, she mused, it had been so nice … so private … so quiet … here … alone with him.
“Justine!” Her own anticipatory frustration was embodied and intensified in Sloane’s bellow. “Justine!” He stormed into the kitchen in time to see her reflexive flinch as her arm inadvertently came in solid contact with the heat of the oven shelf. “Where are the damned sleeping bags?” he shouted, then stopped. “Justine, are you all right?”
Doubled over, she slowly straightened and tried to stand, fighting the stinging sensation on her arm. “I think I’ve burned myself….” She grimaced, clutching the injured forearm. Sloane reacted intantly, pulling her swiftly toward the sink and thrusting her arm beneath the stream of cold water. “Ahhh … that feels a little better….”
Engrossed as she was in an attempt to examine the damage, Justine was oblivious to Sloane’s scowl. “How did you manage to dothis?” It was a new and impatient Sloane, one she’d never seen before.
“I … I was startled when you … barged in here like that!”
“So it wasmyfault?” he challenged her darkly.
“Of course not!” she snapped back defensively. “I take full responsibility for my actions. It was my own dumb fault … and it’s fine now, really it is.” The arm was fine; oh, yes, it would probably turn into a minor blister before healing, but she felt no pain fromthatsource. It was by Sloane that she felt injured.
He read the hurt in her soft and questioning green eyes, then turned the water off with a jerk and stepped back, combing his fingers carelessly through his hair. “Look, Justine. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bark at you like that. It’s just … trying to get things together before we go back …” He abbreviated his explanation, turning instead and heading for the door. “I feel really grubby, after scrubbing the patio. I’m going to take a shower.”
Justine watched him disappear, her heart lodged somewhere between chest and mouth. Absently, she patted her arm dry with a paper towel, then stowed the cleaning supplies beneath the sink. Her brow bore a frown, her eyes a distinct look of worry. Could she let him stalk off like this? Why hadn’t she said anything? After all, hadn’t his gruffness been simply an expression of her own frustration? And, hehadapologized.
Her hand slapped the counter determinedly as her sneaker-clad feet crossed the floor to follow him. The water was already running when she reached the bathroom, its air filled with billowing steam. Entering, then closing the door behind her, she leaned back against it, eyes mesmerized by the surrealism of the scene. Amid the mist she watched the shower door, its thickly textured glass a sensual conductor. Behind it Sloane welcomed the beat of the steady spray, turning slowly, throwing back his head, flexing his neck from side to side. His arms were bent at the elbows, his hands cocked surely on his hips. His skin took on a smoothly rippled texture through the shower door, investing her own fingertips with the yearning to touch as she had touched before. As he pivoted slowly, his every line was revealed to her, clear, then blurred, then clear again beyond the glass.
Driven by the new woman she had just discovered, Justine stepped carefully between his scattered clothes, peeled her own off, one by one, to join the pile, then approached and opened the shower door. The brunt of the spray was deflected from her by the sinewed breadth of his back as Sloane stared at her for several dark and heart-stopping moments. He seemed to be struggling, waging an inner war that she could only imagine. Then, before her wide-eyed watch a slow relaxation spread over his features until he resembled, at last, the man she adored. With a grin he took her in his arms, swinging her around and into the full spray of the shower, holding her there, despite her sputtering protest, until she was thoroughly soaked. Her hair was darker, truly copper when wet, and tumbled in tangled curls which he gently tucked behind her ears. When he kissed her, surrealism took on a different face, then burst quickly into blinding passion as desire washed over them both.
It was much later when he finally reached back to turn off the water. In the steam-shrouded silence, he held her body tightly against his, waiting as the last waves of ecstasy faded to loving memories. Her cheek was wet against his chest, her flesh against his as their heartbeats hammered through each other in one, nonending circle.
“Marry me, Justine,” he murmured softly. “I want you for my wife.”
Chapter 6
Stunned, she caught her breath … then waited … listened … wondered whether she had heard correctly … feared she had … yet prayed she’d only imagined it. Her heart told her she had not, even before the voice, deeper now and with conviction, came again.
“Will you marry me, Justine?”
His arms slipped in their hold to let her step back, though his palms snugly cupped her wet shoulders. She clung to his dripping features, adoring them with a sadness in her gaze, before averting her eyes to the blue and white tiling of the shower, still glistening with moisture. “It’s a shame to have used it,” she mumbled pathetically, “after you spent so long polishing—”
“Justine, did you hear what I said?” The fingers tightening on her flesh drew her attention back to Sloane’s face. “That was a proposal. I just asked you to marry me. Will you?” His eyes were black as coal, yet soft, infinitely soft. For the first time in the whirlwind evolution of their relationship, she sensed a power that she, herself, held over this commanding and compelling man. It gave her no pleasure, only pain. To hurt him—to fail to give him anything, everything, he wanted—to deny him—was agony in itself.
“I … this is so … sudden …” she stammered, slipping easily from his wet grasp and stepping from the shower. She had wrapped her body in a bath sheet by the time his corded arm reached by her for the other that hung folded on the rack, the “his” to her “hers.”
“There’s nothing whatsoever sudden about it,” he spoke softly, the frown which her fleeting glance detected his only outward symptom of disturbance. “After waiting thirty-nine years to find you, I would say that “sudden” is the last word I’d use to describe the situation.”
“Precipitant, then. Impulsive …” She hung her head, groping defensively, blindly.
“When you gave yourself to me on Friday—when you surrendered that virginity you’ve held for twenty-nine years, was that onimpulse?”
Her brows knit; she simply couldn’t he. “No,” she whispered.
“What was it then?”
Silence hung heavy in the sultry air. “… Desire …”
“Was that all?”
Again, she hesitated, sensing that she was slowly and inexorably being forced into a corner.Hunted. Captured. Pinioned.The image of the fox penetrated her consciousness with a force made awesome by the firm set of his jaw, the acute sharpness of his dark eyes, the full-headed lushness of his glistening silver hair.The Silver Fox.He would have to know it all … soon.
“I love you,” she quietly voiced the depth of her feeling.
“Then marry me, Justine! You have no excuse not to!”
Whirling on her heel, she faced him. His towel was doubled up and low-slung across his hips. Hands on the damp flesh just above, he stared at her, looming tall, much taller than he normally seemed to be. Intimidating at mildest, his physical presence threatened to wilt her. Quickly she fought to hold her head high.
