Saint Just couldn't resist. Who could possibly resist?
He put down the candelabra and moved to stand in front of her. Watched for a few mind-blowing moments as she swayed in front of him, her eyes closed, an expression of bliss on her beautiful face.
And then he slipped his arm around her waist, took her hand in his and brought it down.
And guided her into the dance.
She opened her eyes, goggled at him, even as she moved with him. «What… what do you think you're—»
«Shhh. This is the best part.»
«Yes, but—oh, hell.»
Hip to hip. Thigh to thigh. Moving to the rhythm.
He was a marvelous dancer. Maggie had written him so. He was so very good at so very many things.
He watched her as they danced, watched her watching him. Spun her out. Brought her back. Laughed as she finally grinned, as the devil peeked out from behind her eyes, as she gave herself up to the sensuous beat, the heat , the passion .
The desire .
One last whirl, one last dip, and the song was over. But not the dance.
Saint Just knew what came next on the CD. «Vienna.» Love remembered. Love lost. Slow, sad… yet soaring. He drew Maggie close, tucking her right hand in his left, then folding them together against his chest as he held her, as they moved to the poetry that had been love in Vienna.
And Maggie allowed all of it.
Of course, being Maggie, she was not content for them to drift together silently.
«You never knock,» she said as he pressed a kiss against her hair.
«I'm a bad man.»
«Yes, you are. And it's embarrassing, being caught like this.»
«Dancing? I vow I wouldn't know why.»
«No, you wouldn't. You're never embarrassed. I was just trying to, I don't know, blow off some steam?»
«I see.» Saint Just lightly traced his fingertips down the back of her neck. «I could help with that.»
«Yes, I'm sure you think you could. This… this isn't going anywhere, you know.»
«I know.» He stroked her back, shoulder to hip. «Dear Lord, how I know…»
The song began to soar, and he moved with it. They moved with it.
«You could disappear as quickly as you showed up, you know. I couldn't… it's not possible for me to… oh, hell.»
«There is such a thing as the moment.''
«Like 'Vienna'? Love followed by regret? No, I couldn't do that. I just couldn't, Alex.»
«And yet, ' 'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.'»
Maggie stopped moving, pushed slightly away from him even as they continued in the dance. «Tennyson? He wrote too late for the Regency Era. I'm very careful to use only quotes written before your time in history. So how do you know Tennyson?»
«Noticed that, did you?» Saint Just rolled his eyes, smiled at this change of subject. Dearest Maggie, so transparent. But he was getting to her, and she had begun to weaken. He could afford to be patient. «My Maggie, the nitpicker. What? I cannot attempt to improve my mind?»
She shook her head, walked over to the portable CD player and shut it off. «I suppose not. But you could have used Congreve. He wrote before the Regency. Remember? You said it in The Case of the Pilfered Pearls , right before you gave your mistress her walking papers. 'Say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved.'»
«And got my face slapped for my pains. Yes, I recall the moment. There are times, dearest Maggie, when I believe your mission in life is to deny me pleasure.»
«Bite—never mind. And that's not true. I've written a couple dozen love scenes for you and—oh, no. I'm not going there. I don't want to talk about the books. I most especially don't want to talk about the love scenes. Do you have any idea how difficult that is for me since… since you got here?»
She looked so lovely when she was flustered. Saint Just couldn't help himself. He pushed. «No, not really. Tell me.»
«Oh, right. You'd love that, wouldn't you? Forget it.» She ran her fingers through her hair, which settled again most becomingly, which it should, for the price she paid for a silly man with scissors to snip at it once a month. «Okay. This has been a long time coming, and it's not going away without talking about it, is it? So let's get this over with, why don't we?»
«Perceive me as amenable to your every wish, if the it you're referring to is our, shall we say, mutual attraction,» Saint Just said, fingering the ribbon holding his quizzing glass. «Shall I put the music on again?»
«That was not what I meant, and you know it. God! This is like arguing with myself—you know all the snappy answers, probably even before I ask the questions. Do me a favor, Alex, and get out of my head.»
«Done and done, my dear. Sterling and I both. Not that it wasn't enjoyable there, but I so much prefer our present situation. Although, after seeing Dennis Lloyd in the Saint
Just livery, I must say I still do lament that you have yet to make him a fully well-rounded character, so that Clarence might join us here. He had such a way with boot black. I vow, I'm soon to shed a tear, feeling so very nostalgic for the man.»
«Shut up. Just shut up.» Maggie began to pace, yet another of her fortes. For a woman who detested exercise, she was quite the accomplished pacer, some days going for miles in her own living room-cum-office when one of her stories was first percolating in her brain.
Saint Just watched her for a few moments, then broke the silence. «Maggie. My dear, dear girl. We are destined, you know. The /e/Menant is a mild diversion, nothing more, poor man, and we both are aware of that, also. When you created me, the perfect hero of your dreams, there was nothing else for it but for me to appear in your life.»
She stopped dead to glare at him. «Oh, really. Really? Boy, you're a piece of work. You're telling me you've ruined me for other men? Of all the arrogant, self-serving, miserable excuses I've ever heard, that one—»
«Hits closest to the mark?»
«The hell it does.» Maggie pressed her palms to her forehead, whether in pain from a dose of the headache or in a vain attempt to push him back inside her head, he didn't care to ask.
But because he knew her so well, and because he was who he was, Saint Just advanced on her slowly, took hold of her hands, and gently pulled her into his arms.
«The hell it does, yes. I am everything you both love and loathe in a man, Maggie. I appeal to you physically, as well as to your mind. You are attracted to my strengths as well as to my foibles. I attract you even as I sometimes frighten you, as I did when you and Sterling were in danger, and for which I apologize yet again, even as we both know I would do the same again. I am your imagination, all of it, come to life. And even more, now that I have been here for a while and have—and I know how you loathe the word—evolved . Now, do you wish to know what I think of you? How I am attracted to you? How I was attracted to you from the beginning and am more so with each day that passes?»
«No,» she mumbled against his chest. «No… no. I was wrong. Let's not do this. I'm not ready for this.»
«Yet, sad to say, even your reluctance attracts me. Your determined obstinance in the face of all that's reasonable. But there is so much more. You're also a loyal friend in the face of all obstacles. You can be rather funny at times, most often when you are not aware of that fact. You're intelligent and most remarkably human. Genuine, even in your faults—your very few faults. You're endearingly vulnerable and yet courageous and strong. You are totally unaware of how very beautiful you are. And, of course, you had the splendid good sense to invent me.»
Maggie pushed back fractionally and looked up at him as he held her in the cradle of his arms. «Oh, that was so Saint Just. There are times, lots of them, when I feel like Doctor Frankenstein after his monster ran amok in the village. Now let go, okay?»