Shadows and Silk Read online

  “I don’t belong to you, Brant. I never did. And you can keep your secrets and your past and your lame excuses for your behavior to yourself. I gave you something precious, though you didn’t want to see it at the time. I loved you with everything I could have—since I was a girl—but you killed that without a thought.”

  “Darcy—” The look on his face was panic stricken, and she realized a tear had fallen down her cheek. She shook her head as he started to come around the table, holding him off. She couldn’t let him touch her now.

  “I would have given you the space your mind needed and the satisfaction your body craved if you’d cared for and respected me enough. But you didn’t, and you don’t if you think I’d be foolish enough to fall into your arms again after you left me before.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “You’re right. But that pussy belongs to me, Darcy. I bet you’re so wet I could slide easily inside of you. I’ll have you again. It’s inevitable, baby. And this time we’ll see it out to the end. Until the need runs out and we’re both ready to move on.”

  “You don’t understand, Brant. This isn’t about you.” The words almost stuck in her throat, but she stuck out her chin and somehow found the courage to say them. She lifted her left hand so he’d see the sparkling diamond on her finger. “I guess I forgot to mention that I’m engaged to be married.”

  Chapter Four

  Brant had to throttle back the rage that infused his body after Darcy’s bombshell. He’d never felt so close to losing complete control of his sanity until faced with the possibility that she might belong to another man for the rest of her life.

  He knew she’d had relationships since their night together. He knew she’d even taken a lover or two. But she hadn’t been serious enough about them to consider marriage, and the threat of losing her forever hadn’t worried him. But the sight of that ring on her finger made him even more determined to claim her. She was his, dammit, even though his mind and body were warring with each other over how he could possibly keep her. Love her the way she deserved. He could only hope the madness of their lust wore itself down.

  Brant saw red as his anger grew, and her eyes widened in shock as the back of the chair he was holding on to snapped off under the force of his grip. He tossed it to the floor and stalked her around to the other side of the table. He saw the worry in her eyes, and he almost laughed as she stuck out her chin and met his gaze head on. Darcy was no coward. And damned if it didn’t piss him off for her to think that he’d ever lay a hand on her in anger.

  He was so hard he was surprised his jeans could contain his cock. Darcy’s eyes flared and she sucked in a deep breath as he stood in front of her, so their bodies were barely touching and the heat of his desire wrapped around her.

  “Do you think for one second that ring would stop me from taking you?” he whispered. “Do you think it would stop you from giving in to me?”

  “Why you arrogant son of a—”

  Brant’s hand grabbed her fist as she took a swing at him. His mouth cut off her words as his lips took hers in a savage kiss filled with four furious years of longing. Of remembering. He damned them both as her mouth opened on a sigh, and the hot, wet heat of her tongue welcomed him as he stroked against her. She fit perfectly against him, and his fingers gripped her ass and pulled her closer, rubbing the heat of her against his cock.

  “Christ, Darcy—”

  She moaned against his mouth, and her fingers buried in his hair. He shoved chairs out of the way and lifted her onto the table, her legs parting and wrapping tightly around his waist. He was mindless with the pleasure. Why did he ever think he’d be able to do without her? No other woman would ever do. Just Darcy.

  She arched against him, cradling his cock between her jean-clad thighs, and he could feel the tight beads of her nipples beneath the thin silk of her shirt. He didn’t care that there were dozens of people below, or that someone could walk in on them at any time. All he could think about was stripping her down and sinking into her. Of coming home.

  She moaned as he kissed his way down her neck and marked her—claimed her. His fingers undid the buttons of her shirt, and he kissed a wet trail down to her lace-covered breasts. They were full and swollen, and her nipples strained against the blue lace. He covered her nipple with the heat of his mouth and laved her through the lace. Her fingers tightened in his hair and her hips pushed against him, searching for fulfillment.

  “God, you taste so good.” He flicked open the front clasp of her bra, and he had to hold back his own release as her breasts spilled into his hands. Christ, he was like a teenager. When was the last time he’d come in his jeans?

  “Brant.” Her voice hitched and then she screamed as his teeth scraped across her nipple. He soothed it with the flat of his tongue, while his other hand worked at the snap of her jeans.

  He kissed his way back up to her mouth, not caring where they were, only how good she’d feel around him. But then he tasted the saltiness of her tears, and the need shattered as he fought to regain control.

  He leaned back and looked at her face—a face that had been etched in his mind every day and night for the last few years. Her cheeks were flushed with desire and her lips swollen from his kisses. She’d closed her eyes and tears leaked slowly from the corners, trailing down her cheeks. The thought that he’d hurt her was enough to cripple him, but he didn’t know how to fix it. How to right all the wrongs he’d done. He couldn’t give her what she needed. What she deserved. But he couldn’t make himself stay away. Not any longer.

  “Darcy,” he said softly, kissing the corner of her mouth. He wiped away her tears with his thumb, and she drew in a shaky breath before pushing at his chest. He backed away slowly and fell into the lone chair that had managed to stay upright in his frenzy to mate with her. Damned if he could find the strength to stay standing.

  “Listen—” he said.

  “Don’t say anything, Brant.”

  The look on her face had his hands fisting against the arms of the chair and fear gripping his belly.

  She sat up on the edge of the table and ran her fingers through her disheveled hair. She refastened her bra and buttoned her blouse with shaky fingers. There was no hiding the obvious—she looked like a woman who’d been thoroughly tumbled.

  Darcy was the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. Even when she’d been a smart-assed teenager he’d had to fight his baser needs and the attraction and go elsewhere for a mindless release. And he’d had the pleasure of waiting for the woman he’d glimpsed in the teenager. She’d always belonged to him, whether he’d been able to admit it to himself or not. But he’d screwed up, and now the damage might be too severe for anyone to fix.

  “I guess you were right,” she said, sliding off the table and tucking her shirt back in. It took her a minute before she was able to look him in the eye, and he didn’t like what he saw there. “The ring on my finger can’t stop you from taking me. And I guess you proved that it can’t stop me from giving in to you. Congratulations, Brant. You got exactly what you wanted.”

  She looked down at the diamond on her finger, and the sound that came out of her mouth was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

  “But it’s just a symbol, Brant. A symbol showing me that someone out there does love and respect me enough to want to spend their life with me. And the symbol on my finger might not stop either of us from taking up where we left off four years ago. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m going to stop us.”

  Her eyes sliced across him with all the anger and heartbreak she was feeling, and he hated himself more than she ever could for putting that look in her eyes.

  “You had your chance,” she said. “It’s someone else’s turn now. I’ll see this mission out because I know it’s the right thing to do. And I’ll agree to this stupid cover Declan has thought up because in a twisted way I know it makes sense. But once we’re finished I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  Darcy headed to the door, and her hand
was on the knob before he found the strength to speak.

  “You’re lying to yourself,” Brant said. “How can you give yourself to this man when you think you’re in love with me?”

  He watched her spine stiffen and the shudder that went through her body, and he felt like the lowest kind of bastard. But damned if he was going to let another man have what was his without a fight.

  “Easy,” she said. “You’re the one that taught me that loving and fucking don’t necessarily go hand in hand. I don’t need one to do the other. And the last time I checked, that’s how babies are still made. Thanks for the life lesson, Brant.”

  Darcy slipped out of the room while he was still frozen in shock. She wanted marriage and children, and sweat broke out on his brow as the thought of providing her with both of those things didn’t terrify him as much as it should have. He’d wanted a family of his own once upon a time—with the wife who’d seduced him with her sultry looks and sharp mind. The woman who’d had him so tied up in knots that he’d missed the signs that she might be something more than she’d seemed.

  He thought he’d loved Vivian. But he’d found out rather quickly that his instincts were unreliable when it came to the emotion. He hadn’t even known that Vivian was really blond and green-eyed until the investigation had begun after her death. But she’d known of his infatuation with Darcy, even though Darcy had barely been eighteen when he and Vivian had married. He’d been twenty-six at the time, and if Vivian hadn’t come along and bewitched him he would have ended up claiming Darcy much too young.

  Vivian had caught him by keeping her hair colored black and wearing pale blue permanent contact lenses that were an agency standard for deep cover agents. She had looked so much like Darcy he almost hadn’t felt guilty for thinking about her while he was buried inside his wife. He’d been young and stupid. And it was those similarities between the two women that had almost cost him his life. If he’d hesitated just a second longer before pulling the trigger then it would have been him lying six feet under instead of the woman who’d promised to love and cherish him for eternity.

  Brant took a long pull of his forgotten beer, and set it back on the table with vicious control. Darcy might have given up on him, and he couldn’t say that he blamed her, but he’d come to realize that he couldn’t live without her. And he couldn’t stand the thought of another man claiming his woman. If he had to fight to keep her, then that’s what he’d do.

  He only hoped she’d be agreeable to taking what he could give her. He could give her marriage if she had to have it. And God knows if she wanted children then he’d be more than up to the task of providing them. But long gone were the days where Brant Scott gave his heart and soul to one woman. He’d learned that lesson the hard way—with a knife in his back and his illusion of love shattered.

  Chapter Five

  Darcy spent a restless night, her body primed for release and the heart she’d spent the last four years mending, cracked and bleeding once again. She’d been able to take care of the first problem—at least she’d taken the edge off—but the second problem wasn’t something that could be fixed.

  She lay in the oversized bed in her hotel room and stared at the patterns on the ceiling. The covers were twisted around her, and her sleep shirt was still rucked around her waist.

  “Damn you,” she whispered, not sure if she were cursing herself or Brant. Her body was hot with need, and nothing she’d done had put out the flames.

  The ring on her finger was heavy, and she turned it round and round. It had been a stroke of luck Kenneth had proposed only a few hours before her meeting with Brant and her brothers. He’d driven down from his apartment in New York so they could spend the evening together. She’d had no idea he’d planned to propose. Kenneth was the kind of man who wanted stability. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been as ready as he was to commit to something long term. They hadn’t even been dating exclusively. But he’d been unfazed when she’d turned down his proposal, and he’d insisted she wear the ring for a few days and think about what she really wanted in her future. Unfortunately, what she really wanted was Brant.

  There was nothing wrong with Kenneth. They shared common interests—he was Dean of the history department at Columbia where she taught, and they both came from large families. They kept each other mentally stimulated, and she’d had no complaints when she’d finally agreed to share his bed. But he wasn’t Brant. And she’d stopped hoping for even a fraction of the pleasure she’d experienced four years before. She’d looked for it, and no one else even came close.

  Quite honestly, Kenneth’s proposal had taken her completely by surprise. She’d thought the relationship had been waning. They’d started spending more time apart, and she’d never quite gotten around to moving her things to his place like he’d invited her to do. She’d been busy with work, and she could admit she’d taken more lecturing jobs where she had to travel for weeks at a time, so she wouldn’t have to make a definite commitment to their relationship. It had been months since she’d shared Kenneth’s bed or had time for more than a casual dinner. And he’d felt her restlessness, thinking the cause of it was because she was looking for more of a commitment from him, when in fact it had been the opposite.

  Darcy threw back the covers, deciding sleep was never going to come. The sun would be coming up in another hour or so, and there was no reason for her to lie in bed and pretend that the ring on her finger was the real problem. The real problem was Brant had put his hands on her again. And her body had come alive after four years of nothing but the memory of his touch.

  He’d ruined her for anyone else. Damn him.

  “To hell with it,” she said, stomping into the bedroom and taking off the ring. She put it inside the little zippered compartment of her makeup bag, and tried not to feel guilty. She’d already tried calling Kenneth when she’d gotten in the night before, but he hadn’t answered his phone. He’d probably known she was going to try to break things off for good. She’d just mail the ring back to him with a letter. It was the right thing to do.

  Darcy stripped out of her nightshirt and stared at herself in the mirror. She barely recognized the woman she saw there. Her hair was tangled from a sleepless night, and her eyes were wide and full of unfulfilled heat. It hadn’t mattered how many times she’d tried to relieve the pressure of Brant’s touch through the night. She hadn’t had him inside her to quench that need, and her eyes still flamed brightly with desire.

  She winced as she saw the mark at her throat. At how he’d branded her. Her nipples beaded to hard points at the memory of his mouth suckling there. Was she stupid for not accepting Kenneth’s proposal and spending the rest of her life with nothing more than contentment? Was she wrong to want more?

  Darcy jumped in the shower and tried not to think about how sensitized her body was as she lathered the soap and rubbed it across her skin. She stood under the hot spray of the water and closed her eyes, bringing back the feel of Brant’s hands and mouth. It was a torture that was almost impossible to ignore.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine the heat of Brant’s mouth worshipping her breasts, suckling her nipples. She moaned as the pleasure ricocheted to the taut bud between the folds of her sex.

  Her pussy was slick with need, and her fingers knew exactly where to touch—the right amount of pressure. But she drew it out, imagining Brant’s tongue in place of her fingers. She could feel his broad, calloused fingers tracing the outer lips of her vagina before they’d sink inside.

  “Yes. Brant,” she cried as her fingers moved faster and faster. But nothing was as good as the real thing. His cock was large and thick, and she remembered the way he had to work the mushroom-shaped head inside of her, even though she’d been more than ready to take him.

  The liquid heat between her thighs flowed thicker, sweeter, and her knees trembled as she felt the first tremors of her climax. She braced a hand against the cold tile of the shower wall to keep her balance, and when the heat gathered in her clit and spread
through her body, it was Brant’s name she yelled out as the orgasm rocked through her. Pleasure zinged down her spine, and she held the palm of her hand against her pussy to prolong the feelings.

  The tremors finally subsided and she sucked in great gasps of air before dropping to her knees. The water rained down over her bowed head, and her chest was tight with the need to hold back the tears. What the hell was she going to do? She couldn’t keep fighting it.

  Brant was the only man she’d ever loved. Him walking away hadn’t changed those feelings for him, even though she’d prayed she could come to hate him. Could she harden her heart and use him to fulfill the burning sexual needs inside her, and then move on as he had obviously done? She had a career. She was one of the top people in her field. Could she take what he’d offered her the night before and then live out the rest of her life without looking back with regrets? It was time to take care of herself and go into self-preservation mode. No more wishing for things that wouldn’t happen, and no more tears.

  Darcy turned off the water, her body weak and tired, and she grabbed a thick white towel, wrapping it around her twice as she headed back into the bedroom. Her eyes were heavy with sleep, and she planned to fall face first into the bed until she had to get ready to meet Brant later that morning. But those plans were shot to hell when she saw Declan sitting at the little table in front of the window, a fresh cup of coffee sitting in front of him.

  “How the hell did you get in here?” she asked.

  “If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” he answered with a smile. “You look like hell. Bad night?”

  “I can always count on you,” she muttered, grabbing a pair of black leggings and an oversized knitted sweater in varying shades of blue from her suitcase. “If you’re here to ruin my morning with more good news then I’d like to get dressed first.”