Amanda felt what must be coming, what must have happened, but she was amazed that even after all these years the feeling of surprise and disbelief that invaded Marc’s body, the pain that he suffered for his disgraced brother was as immediate and visceral as the original shock must have been.
“The forger’s book came out just as David’s book was about to be published. The drawing was fake. The book proved it. The forger didn’t even know about some dumb kid betting his whole wad on that particular drawing being real. It cost a very famous museum a lot of embarrassment and a publisher a lot of money. It destroyed David’s rep. Dad…” His voice caught, though his face remained implacable. “My father couldn’t laugh loud or long enough.”
He gave a harsh snort of angry derision. “It was the one thing that kept him going through the cancer. He died with a smirk on his face.”
Such unloving coldness in anyone was beyond Amanda’s comprehension. Her own father may not be demonstrative, she thought, but she had never doubted his love.
“But, your mother?”
“Mom worshiped the ground Dad walked on. She had better,” he added with a trace of resigned bitterness, “Since she never wanted kids anyway.”
“Oh, I can’t believe that. I know…”
Marc turned and faced Amanda. His face blank. “No, Amanda, you do not know what it’s like not to be wanted. And, pray God, you never will.”
Amanda held him tightly. Trying to impress through her body that life was not always like that, with parents so unloving, lives so shattered. Her father and brothers were far from perfect, but they were good men, they meant well. They could impart unknown and unmeaning pain but she knew they were there if ever she needed them. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend the emptiness of the childhood that Marc and his brother had endured.
Her body shuddered with a repressed sob.
“Aw, c’mon, babe. It’s not so bad. That was big brother’s hell, not mine. I was just surfing my little heart out. I didn’t give a fig about anything.” The lilting playfulness drained from his voice. He dragged a grin up, shoving the deep hurt aside. “I’m just playing on your sympathy, hoping to…”
She kissed him deeply, urgently, fervently. She wanted to make him well. Make him whole. But it was more than sympathetic concern. It was realizing that the man she was so attracted to was more and more a complicated human being.
The moods that swung over “Antonio” in their first time together in the Village that she had attributed to his concern with his disguise, now reappeared as part of his total character, as part of Marc’s struggle to deal with all the issues that made him the singular man he was.
He would be a struggle to comprehend, to deal with. But it would be an exciting struggle, ever new, ever fresh, as she discovered deeper and deeper depths in him.
His heart thundered against hers. Her own pulse throbbed in her temples. She so wanted to be a part of this man’s life. He would challenge her, he would thrill her; he would infuriate her and would excite her beyond all reason.
Marc’s fingers threaded into her hair pulling the strands through his strong fingers. His hand revolved to stroke her cheek, to cup her chin. His deep blue eyes, filled with longing and need, searched the depths of hers. She met his gaze, her eyes wide with acquiescence and embraced the inevitable.
The soft light from the bedside table illuminating the planes of his strong face was replaced by the harsh night lights of the city flashing dramatically across his high cheekbones and the firm chin as the cab hurtled them back to David’s apartment.
He held her as if afraid she might spring from him at any moment, but Amanda clung to Marc just as tenaciously. Neither of them spoke as the yellow streak surged its way through the dark pre-dawn cityscape.
Not once did she question her decision.
She only knew what she was about to do was going to change the course of her life.
Chapter 11
AMANDA waited as Marc forced a chair back against the doorknob and then wedged the coffee table against the chair, barricading them safely in the apartment.
He turned, bent his powerful body and scooped her into his arms. Standing in the middle of the wrecked room, legs wide, feet solidly planted, Amanda clung to his neck, her acquiescent body curled against his beating heart.
She had dreamed of this moment, of being held in his strong embrace, protected from all harm, ready to enter into his life, to be a part of him.
And the dreams were feeble compared to the reality of his flesh and blood, hot with desire, trembling with the same anticipation that coursed through her throbbing veins and filled her being with his presence.
Even yet, neither spoke. There was no way Amanda could articulate how her body and her soul felt at this moment. How it seemed that all the actions of her life had led to this particular place and this particular time with this particular man.
She was Egyptian, French, ancient Greek, all women to all the men that this man holding her tight had created in his art poses, and by creating had made her a part of his imagination and his reality.
Marc carried her into the bedroom and placed her gently on the bed. He stepped back to admire his treasure. Amanda cringed. He was still all men, but she was certainly not all women, nor even one desirable one at that moment. Her dark hair plastered to her head, the disheveled locks had been kept in place by a shove here, a quick tuck there.
Her lightweight cotton shirt stuck to her damp skin. Her bra felt constricting and tight, shoving her in all the wrong places, making her feel crumpled and misshapen.
My jeans must be filthy.She smoothed a hand down the dirty denim, streaked with the powder of broken plaster.
And those damn clunky running shoes…Amanda was proud of her feet, they were handsome, beautifully shaped, and attached to her attractive calves by slim ankles.
He had showered. He had thrown on fresh clothes. He looked like something out of the Hampton’s issue of Gentleman’s Quarterly. While she felt like…
His gray-blue eyes shone in the early morning light as he looked down at her, devouring her. Dawn was breaking, sending splinters of gold slipping through the shuttered windows and rebounding fiery in the deep recesses of his eyes. His determined jaw glowed. She imagined him naked, moist and shining in full, warm sunlight. He began to unbutton his shirt.
“No!” The sound of Amanda’s voice shocked them both. His fingers froze at the V that had opened revealing his breastbone, the center of his smooth, sculpted chest. She could hear the pounding of his heart in the silence that followed her cry.
The bed rattled as she scrambled upright to kneel and reach for him. She gently pushed his hands aside and began to unfasten the buttons herself. His eyes lowered to follow her actions, impossibly long lashes shadowing his high cheekbones. His lips curled luxuriously, sinfully. He allowed her to undress him.
She tossed the shirt aside and lay her cheek against his naked chest, feeling the blood rushing through her warming face heated to an even greater incandescence by the heat rising from him. Her hands moved over his upper body, imprinting the rise and fall of his musculature into her exploring palms.
He gasped with pleasure, his chest swelling quickly with the intake of breath, and she was startled at the force that erupted under her cheek.
The thought skittered through her brain like a flash of summer lightning far in the distance. Could she possibly contain this primal energy that she was about to unleash, that she was desperate to allow to take full possession of her being? The rumble of distant thunder from the splintering thought rolled nearer and nearer and she knew the answer as well as she knew the forces of nature.