Husbands and Other Strangers Read online

  Outside, the hot Santa Ana winds had descended from the desert less than half an hour ago and were whipping through the trees. The palm tree in the distance looked as if it was directing traffic, its fronds moving first one way, then another. The winds created a fierce noise not unlike the howling of a banshee.

  Or a lost soul, he thought.

  “Sorry that I didn’t remember,” she told him, dropping her purse on the side table by the door.

  He paused for a moment, the strange note in her voice catching his attention. There was a look of sadness in her eyes, of regret. The lingering look of doubt he’d come across ever since he’d brought her to the hospital was gone.

  He felt his way around carefully, knowing better than to take too much for granted when it came to Gayle. “Then you’ve stopped doubting that I’m your husband.”

  “Yes.” She lifted her shoulders in a half shrug which was not nearly as careless as she pretended it was. “Actually, I started believing you a couple of days ago.”

  The only sound was the howl of the wind outside. Maybe he was opening up a fresh can of worms, but he had to ask.

  “Why?”

  Though she thrived on emotion, always had, there were times when she gave way to logic. “Because nobody would go through this much trouble, stage photographs, get my brothers in on it, even the colonel, that kind of thing,” she elaborated. “It has to be true.” An enigmatic smile played on her lips for a moment before she added, “Even I’m not worth that much trouble.”

  He laughed shortly and shook his head. He was doing his best to keep this sense of hopelessness at bay. “Nice to know the accident didn’t affect your ego, either.”

  She wasn’t sure how he meant that, but she balked at any reference to having an ego. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, the person she was inside was insecure, not egotistical.

  “That was meant as a joke,” she told him.

  Taylor sighed. He shed the sports jacket he detested wearing and dropped it onto the plastic covered sofa without a conscious thought as to what he was doing. “Yeah, I know.” Pulling out his shirt from his slacks, he began to unbutton it. “Sorry, maybe I’m being a little testy.”

  “No more than usual.”

  Gayle picked up the jacket and brushed it off, something he noted that she always did whenever they returned from a function. She was doing it unconsciously. Naturally. Maybe some small part of her mind was staging a comeback. He tried not to get overly excited about what would have been, under normal circumstances, a very mundane act.

  She saw him looking at her oddly. Had something fallen out of his pocket? She looked around and saw no reason for his expression. “What?”

  “You’re picking up my jacket.”

  She looked down at the material in her arms. “Well you left it on top of the plastic. Do you have any idea how dusty that must be with all the things you were doing here? You’ll have to send it to the cleaners before it’s completely clean again. Why are you looking at me that way?”

  He allowed himself a smile. Inside hope had lit a candle. A large candle. “Because that’s something a wife would do.”

  She had no idea why on the one hand she felt so attracted to this man and on the other, she had this desire to contradict everything he said. Was that what her marriage had been like? Constant skirmishes on the marital battlefield?

  “Or someone who was trying to establish some kind of order in this land of chaos,” she countered. Gayle thrust the jacket toward him. “Here, I’ll even let you hang it up.”

  He took the jacket from her. “You can still nag, I see.”

  Gayle lifted her chin, all set to go a round or two with him. “I do not nag. I make tasteful suggestions.”

  Taylor rolled his eyes, then headed up the stairs. “Over and over again.”

  Scooping up the edge of her hem, she hurried after him. “There’s nothing wrong with reinforcement,” she informed him.

  Taylor’s laugh was forced. “Is that what you call it, now?”

  Under Gayle’s watchful eye, he took the jacket over to the closet and hung it up. Then he removed his shoes, using the toe of one to work off the heel of another. His socks came off next. Then his shirt. He left both on a chair by the bureau.

  Gayle couldn’t draw her eyes away. Something stirred in the back of her mind, but as she tried to urge it forward, it remained in the shadows.

  There was no denying that she was experiencing a very real sense of déjà vu. She’d stood like this before, in some room, perhaps even this one, watching him do exactly what he was doing.

  But like a TV screen experiencing an invasion of annoyingly distracting lines and waves, the picture just refused to become clear no matter how much she willed it to.

  When Taylor’s long, tanned fingers went to undo the button at the top of his slacks, Gayle realized that she had caught her breath.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Avoiding another ‘tactful’ suggestion,” he told her mildly. “If I take my pants off downstairs, you’ll only complain about where I leave them. Besides—” he eased the slacks down from his hips, then hung them up, as well “—my cutoffs are here.”

  She felt a wave of warmth coming over her. Intense warmth. And there seemed to be a sudden shortage of air, not just in her lungs but in the immediate area around her. Gayle knew that she should have turned away. That standing like this, staring at him, was giving Taylor the satisfaction of getting the reaction she knew he was after.

  But it was impossible to look away from a body like that.

  Responses sprang forth inside of her own body like a fountain suddenly coming to life in the desert. Her mind might not remember this man, but there seemed to be no doubt that her body did.

  Her tongue was resting in a chalky mouth.

  “You sleep in cutoffs?” she heard herself asking. The words felt as if they were dribbling from her lips one at a time, like slow drops of water from a faucet.

  “Sometimes,” he told her, his eyes never leaving hers. “Sometimes I sleep in nothing at all.”

  Everything became exponentially hotter. Gayle could have sworn she was standing in an oven. The vague thought that the Santa Anas had somehow managed to sneak their way into the house, crossed her mind.

  Taylor would have been responsible for that, too. The man had undoubtedly left holes in the structure where she couldn’t see them.

  Just like he’d created holes in her resolve to remember Taylor, really remember him before she allowed her other, more physical responses to take over.

  She could feel her heart hammering in her throat. And her chest. How was that possible?

  And why wasn’t he putting something on that rock-hard body of his?

  Her knees were growing weaker. “And which time is this?” Her voice was hardly above a whisper.

  Taylor stood so close to her there wasn’t even enough room to wedge in a prayer. Not one for strength. Or even one of thanksgiving.

  “That’s up to you,” he told her.

  She wanted some kind of outside power to come in and intervene. To take it out of her hands. She didn’t want it to be up to her.

  Because she wasn’t strong enough to turn away.

  His words seemed to shimmer before her, almost tangible enough for her to grasp in her hand. The next moment she was aware that she was grasping his shoulders. Standing in the high heels she still hadn’t removed, the distance between point A and point B was not as great as it might have been. Point A were her lips, point B were his.

  She wasn’t completely sure just who cut away the remaining distance between them. It might have been Taylor, but she was fairly certain that she made the first move. That she was the one who brought her lips up to his.

  The next thing she knew, she was being enveloped in his arms. He was pressing her to him. Pressing his mouth against hers. And even though she couldn’t remember a physical relationship between them beyond the first time Taylor kissed her, somet
hing inside of her cried out for joy.

  Like a flower sitting in darkness, suddenly exposed to the sun, her desire bloomed and took over.

  Gayle surrendered to the inevitable not with resignation but a sense of elation that almost frightened her for its intensity. As far as she was concerned, she really still did not know him.

  It didn’t seem to matter. Her soul somehow knew him and that was enough.

  She lost herself inside the kiss.

  And then, suddenly, he was drawing back, away from her. “Gayle?”

  It took her a moment to orient herself. Her insides were spinning, along with the room. She looked at his face, his expression, and knew what he was asking—whether she’d suddenly remembered.

  Ever so slightly, she moved her head from side to side. She didn’t remember. And right now she desperately wanted to.

  “Make me remember, Taylor.”

  He didn’t need anything more.

  Sweeping her back into his arms, he kissed her over and over again, melting her.

  Melting himself.

  It was all he could do not to rip her gown off her body. But although in the past their lovemaking had at times gone way beyond the point of intensity, he knew that as far as she was concerned, this was the first time. Which meant that no matter what he wanted, he needed to go slowly. For her sake. For their sake.

  So, though it cost him, Taylor held himself in check, moving ahead by increments. Making love to her with his mouth, with his hands, with every breath that left his body.

  He drew her gown away from her slowly. His arms surrounding her, he found the zipper and moved it down along the curve of her back, until it came to rest at the base of her spine. He saw desire leap into her eyes.

  His fingertips on both sides of the opened zipper, he drew the gown away from her as if he were peeling away an outer layer. The gown pooled at her feet, leaving her wearing a creamy white thong that seemed to be spun out of gauze and his fondest dreams. Her high heels and stockings that adhered themselves to the tops of her thighs completed the picture.

  His heart in his throat, Taylor sank to his knees in front of her. Very slowly, he rolled first one stocking down the length of her leg, then the other.

  Her hand on his shoulder, Gayle stepped out of each one at a time, leaving her shoes behind, as well.

  And then, rather than rise to his feet again, Taylor brought his mouth down lightly along the areas that had for so long been his.

  The heat of his breath found her. Making her crazy.

  Gayle pressed her lips together to keep the deep, guttural noise of pleasure from piercing the air. Her fingernails dug into his shoulder as she felt his assault on her resistance growing more intense.

  Felt the heat traveling through her limbs. Through her loins.

  He was doing things to her, things that all but made her leave her body behind and spiral off headlong into space.

  She felt weak, ready to pool like hot lava at his feet.

  Gayle bit her lip as the first climax came, rocking her. She was only half-aware of tugging on Taylor’s shoulder, trying to get him to stand up. She wanted this to be a mutual experience, wanted to wrap her body around his. To feel every part of him against her and to have him feel her against him.

  When he rose to his feet again, she saw herself reflected in his eyes. Felt a quickening throughout her body. Felt something she would have sworn was love, if only she was capable of it.

  She blocked all thoughts from her mind.

  And then, suddenly, they were together on the bed, her legs wrapped tightly around his torso, his body hot against hers. Their mouths sealed to each other’s as wild sensations echoed and throbbed through her very core.

  He possessed every inch of her.

  By touch, by taste, all of her belonged to him. And she had never wanted anything so much in her life. Never felt anything like this before.

  And yet, if Taylor was really her husband, she’d had to have felt this before.

  Why? Why couldn’t she remember?

  And then all questions vanished into oblivion as she felt him shift his body over hers. Felt his hands join with hers as he drew them up over her head.

  Felt the weight of his body as he began to move forward, into her.

  Gayle raised her hips in response, urging him on, desperate to feel that final, all encompassing sensation she knew was out there, waiting for her. The joining occurred as she felt herself drowning in a sea of openmouthed kisses. She felt, too, an urgency to claim him for herself.

  Her pulse escalated, beating erratically along with her heart as the tempo of their timeless dance increased, as she rushed to join him in the climb to the top of the mountain.

  When the final burst consumed her, she cried out, enthralled in a kind of mindless ecstasy that, until this moment, she’d had no idea she was capable of. She wasn’t alone in her reaction, she sensed, given the way Taylor had pushed himself farther into her.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, the intensity abated, allowing them both to float back to earth, swaddled in a blanket of euphoria.

  For one brief moment, she wanted this to be her last moment on earth. She wanted to be able to savor this moment and just withdraw from everything forever. Because this was perfect.

  But it wasn’t her last moment. And the world was there waiting for her when she finally opened her eyes again.

  As was he.

  Gayle knew that he was going to ask. A part of her was almost willing to lie, to give him the answer she knew he was waiting for.

  But she couldn’t lie. It wasn’t her way.

  Oh, no?

  Gayle stiffened. What the hell was that supposed to mean? She felt as if she was going crazy. Why, why couldn’t everything just come together for her? Why couldn’t she remember a man who could make her body sing this way?

  Why were these strange, formless doubts plaguing her?

  Pivoting on his elbows, Taylor looked at his wife. He saw his answer on her face. He was fairly certain that if she’d just remembered, there would be a look of elation on her face, of triumph that she had met yet another challenge and had emerged victorious.

  There would have been a look there other than the one he saw now.

  With a sigh, he moved off her. Lying beside her, he gathered Gayle into his arms the way he always did after they made love. He did it then because neither one of them ever wanted the moment to end. He did it now because she was vulnerable.

  As was he.

  “You might not remember me,” he told her, “but your body certainly does.”

  She was fairly certain another man would have thought that making the earth move for her was enough to jolt her memory back. Yet Taylor assumed nothing had changed.

  She turned her face toward him. The closeness of his body made her feel safe even as she continued to be lost. “How did you know?”

  “Saw the look on your face,” he told her. “There was no sudden spark in your eyes, nothing that said your brain was back to normal and remembered me. You enjoyed yourself, but you enjoyed yourself with a stranger, not with the man you’ve been married to for the last eighteen months.”

  He was hurting, she thought, and she ached for him. But she ached for herself, as well. Because she was the one in prison and she had no way of knowing how long this jail sentence would continue.

  Releasing her, Taylor sat up on the bed with his back to her.

  She held her breath. Was he going to get up and go to bed downstairs? She didn’t want him to leave her. To leave her here in this large four-poster bed with nothing but half shadows to keep her company. To taunt her.

  He stood up, naked and as perfect as anything she’d even seen outside of a museum. She could feel her body quickening again, could feel the longing taking hold of her. Longing for him.

  “Maybe it requires more than just once,” she said quietly. He turned around to look at her. “Unless you’re one of those men who just likes to do it once.”

  But even as
she said it, she had evidence before her that Taylor definitely did not fall into that category.

  He sat down on the bed again, facing her. “I’m one of those men who believes that something takes as long as it takes.”

  She didn’t bother trying to keep the smile from her lips. “Which means twice?”

  He lay down beside her, taking her into his arms. “Which means as many times as you want to do it.”

  And then, before she could ask him another question, Taylor was kissing her again. Kissing her as his hands began to roam over her body again, stroking her and burning away the desire to waste her breath on words when there were so many more worthwhile things to occupy her.

  Chapter Twelve

  Early-morning sunlight moved its way quietly into the room. Gayle stirred, squeezing her eyes shut to keep the intrusive light away.

  As her brain shook off the last remnants of sleep, layers of last night returned to her. Her eyes flew open as the full impact of what had happened, what she’d done, sank in.

  She’d surrendered last night.

  Surrendered.

  The word echoed in her brain, growing larger as she brought her surroundings into focus.

  Surrendering meant allowing the man stirring beside her to have control over her.

  No, damn it, it wasn’t going to go that way. She’d worked too hard to maintain her independence just to throw it all away because some man was incredibly hot in bed.

  She still had no idea what their relationship had been like before, she only had now to work with. And whatever happened now was going to undoubtedly dictate at least a portion of her future.

  She was the master of her fate, not him.

  Taylor stretched beside her as his eyes opened. He looked not unlike a cat who had fallen, face-first, into a vat of cream and had to drink his way out. “’Morning, Beautiful.”

  Gayle tugged the sheet around her, wishing she’d woken up earlier and been able to leave the scene of the crime. Or at the very least put on her clothes before he’d opened his eyes.

  “’Morning,” she replied crisply, her shoulders as stiff as her expression.

  He knew that expression. She might not be able to remember their life together, but he was experiencing a very definite wave of déjà vu. Gayle had had that exact expression on her face the morning after the first time they’d made love together.