Navy Grooms, page 36
“Your love matters to me.” His eyes lowered to linger on her mouth.
Catherine thought she’d go crazy if he didn’t soon kiss her. She wanted him so much that she could taste the desire building within her. It circled her like a binding rope, imprisoning her.
Royce lifted his hand, and his movements were so slow and deliberate. He touched her face, his fingers gently caressing her cheek as if he were blind and was acquainting himself with her. His touch, so light and tender, seemed to reach all the way to her soul. Nothing could have prepared her for the utter beauty of it, the sheer magnitude of these precious, silent moments.
Royce must have felt it, too, the intensity of it. The beauty of it. He was breathing hard when he pulled his hand away, much too hard for such a nondemanding task.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, jerking the door open.
“Royce.” She wouldn’t let him send her away, not again. Not when she needed him so desperately.
“Please...just go.” The words were wrenched from him. Sagging with defeat, Catherine did as he requested.
* * *
Catherine had dreaded the Birthday Ball all week. She wasn’t in any mood to celebrate. Nor was she in the frame of mind to socialize and stand idly by while Royce waltzed around the room with one woman after another. Not when she so longed to be the one in his arms.
She hadn’t talked to him since the night she’d gone to be with Kelly. These days were by far the most miserably long ones of her life. It was as if their brief moments together had been ripped out of time. Royce hadn’t spoken to her, hadn’t looked at her, hadn’t acknowledged her.
Catherine had talked to Kelly only once on the phone, hungering all the while for some word from Royce. Something. Anything.
The situation didn’t seem to be going any better for him. In the past few days he’d been in one bear of a mood. Half the time it seemed as if he was looking for an excuse to slam his fist through a wall. He wore his bad-boy image as tightly as a glove. It fit him well.
It had taken Catherine only one week of this trial time to make several valid perceptions. She now accepted the fact she was in love with Royce Nyland. But she’d known that before this self-imposed restriction.
She’d also realized that if he asked her to marry him, even if the proposal came on the tail end of a bout of jealousy, or a bout of anything, she’d accept.
What she hadn’t anticipated was this heart-wrenching loneliness. The silence that had once fit so comfortably in her life, she now found deafening and painfully disturbing. The pleasure of her own company was sadly lacking. A hundred times, in a hundred different ways she found herself missing Royce even more than she had in the beginning. Since the night with Kelly, she missed the looks they’d often shared, the strong communication between them that made words superfluous. The throaty sound of his laughter. Oh, how she loved hearing him laugh.
She saw him every day, walked past him, spoke to him as if he meant nothing to her, as if they were little more than casual acquaintances. If she found it hard to continue the sham before, it was doubly so now. Painfully so.
Following through with this charade was difficult enough during the day, but to purposely expose herself to it for this Birthday Ball was a challenge she dreaded.
Catherine was forced to admit, however, how beautiful everything was. The orchestra was playing on the opposite end of the room while a mirrored ball hung overhead, casting reflections of warm light about the room. Romance, music, muted light surrounded the couples that circled the polished dance floor. From a distance they resembled graceful swans coasting on a mirrored lake. It was all so beautiful. So splendid.
Catherine stood on the outer edges of the crowd and looked on, admiring the handsome men dressed in either their dress uniforms or tuxedos. The women wore a variety of gowns. Catherine had chosen to wear the formal evening dress uniform with a long straight skirt of navy blue, with matching jacket.
It wasn’t until she’d arrived that she understood her choice of outfit for the evening. She needed to remember she was in the Navy. All too often of late, she’d wanted to disregard the pledges she’d made when she accepted her commission. Love seemed far more important than the rules and regulations, which only went to prove how dangerously shaky her thinking was becoming. Royce was right. They needed this time apart, and since he seemed determined to use every one of these thirty days, she had no recourse but to stand by patiently until he’d come to a decision.
* * *
Catherine arrived. Royce noticed her the moment she walked in the door. It was as if everything came to a sudden, grinding halt. The music faded, the dancers went still, even the lights seemed to have dimmed. Royce stood, frozen. An air-raid alarm wouldn’t have budged him. He simply stood and watched her, soaking in every delicate nuance of her. She was lovely, so breathtakingly lovely that she quite literally held him spellbound. He’d missed her. Dear Lord, how he’d missed her. He felt as though it had been a thousand years since he’d held her in his arms, a thousand years since he’d tasted her lips. Royce was so damned hungry for her that he would have gratefully accepted a few stolen moments alone even if it meant sitting in the front seat of his Porsche on a lonely deserted road.
“Evening, Nyland.”
Royce turned to find himself face-to-face with Admiral Duffy. “Good evening, sir,” he said, having trouble even then pulling his eyes away from Catherine.
* * *
Catherine found herself scanning the dancers, watching, searching. She wasn’t fooling herself, she knew who she was looking to find. She didn’t see Royce, at least not at first. It wasn’t until later, after she’d gotten herself a cup of punch and was wandering around chatting with casual acquaintances that she found him.
He was across the room from her, involved in a conversation with two other men. The first was the admiral, she could tell that much. The second man was turned at an angle so Catherine couldn’t identify him, not that it mattered. Royce captured her full attention.
She knew she was cheating on their promise to each other to be watching him the way she was. But the pleasure she found compensated by far for any feelings of guilt.
Royce was different from when she’d first met him, she mused, extraordinarily pleased by the realization. The changes had been subtle over the weeks, but nevertheless they were there. His features remained harsh, though they relaxed more often into a smile than they used to. He would always possess the same rugged appeal, that wasn’t likely to ever change. But there was now a serenity about him, she noted, that had been missing when they’d first met, a tranquillity.
Again Catherine experienced a greedy sense of pride, knowing her love was what had made the difference.
“Lieutenant Commander.”
The voice behind her was friendly and familiar. “Good evening, Elaine.”
Her secretary was dressed in a red velvet gown and stood next to a tall middle-aged lieutenant, who Catherine recognized immediately as Elaine’s husband. “This is my husband, Ralph Perkins.”
“How do you do?” Catherine said, extending a hand to the man who played such a large role in her secretary’s life. “Your wife is as valuable as my right hand.”
“Oh, I know,” Ralph said in a smooth Southern drawl that caused Catherine to think of antebellum homes with wide sweeping lawns and warm pecan pie fresh from the oven. “I couldn’t get along without her, myself.”
The three chatted a few minutes longer, before Elaine and her husband headed for the dance floor. For a few moments, Catherine watched them, envious of their freedom to express their love and enjoyment of each other. As she continued to hold on to her punch glass, Catherine’s gaze drifted to the floor while she gathered her strength. She was going to need it if she were to make it through this night. When she felt strong enough, she looked over to where she’d last seen Royce.
He was gone. Experiencing a momentary sense of anxiety, she glanced around the room. She couldn’t find him anywhere. She searched once again, scanning the crowded ballroom, her gaze moving from one area to another until she happened to catch a glimmer of dark hair and blue eyes when he swirled past her.
Royce was dancing, Catherine realized. Dancing. And it wasn’t likely that it was the admiral in his arms.
Catherine had to stop and carefully analyze her feelings. Envy. She would have dearly loved to be the woman in Royce’s arms. But she doubted that they would have been able to pull it off. Not tonight, not here with the admirals and captains and all the big mucky-mucks looking on. She was envious, yes, but not jealous.
Royce circled past her a second time, the music crescendoing to a loud climax. Immediately Catherine recognized the white-haired woman in his arms as Admiral Duffy’s wife. She felt a little better, knowing the woman was happily married and had been for thirty years. It was little comfort, damn little, but it helped.
Her eyes were on Royce when she felt someone move next to her. “Hello, Catherine.”
“Good evening, Dan,” she greeted, doing her best to sound friendly. Despite the fact Dan enjoyed playing the role of devil’s advocate, Catherine couldn’t help liking him. He knew how she felt about Royce and was probably equally knowledgeable of Royce’s feelings toward her. But the three of them chose to pretend otherwise. It was amazing when she stopped to think about it.
“Have you saved a dance for me?”
“I... I...”
“More excuses?” he asked with a knowing smile.
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather sit this one out.”
“My heart is mortally wounded, but I’m becoming accustomed to you knocking my ego around like a tennis ball.”
Catherine grinned at the image that sprang readily to her mind. If anyone’s heart had been abused, it was her own. And Royce’s. Involuntarily, her gaze moved back to him. He really did look...
* * *
...she looked distressed. It was ridiculous to waltz around the dance floor with the admiral’s wife in his arms and calculate every step so he could watch Dan Parker make a move on Catherine. Ridiculous or not, that was exactly what Royce was doing.
At one time, he’d actually encouraged Dan to ask Catherine out. It had been a futile attempt to stop what was happening between him and Catherine. He couldn’t believe he’d done anything so stupid. It wouldn’t have worked. There’d never been the slightest possibility of that, but at the time he’d been desperate. He could still remember how angry Catherine had been at him, how she’d walked into his office, her eyes sparking with outrage and fury.
A good deal of water had passed under the bridge since then. The waters of discernment, the waters of perception. What he felt for Catherine was real. Strong. Heady. He hadn’t meant to fall in love. He’d avoided love for years. Struggled with it, contested the fact it was possible for a man and woman to truly love each other. His first taste of it had left a bitter aftertaste, and he wasn’t eager to experience it again.
* * *
“You needn’t have turned Dan down, you know.”
Breathless emotion clenched Catherine’s heart when she realized it was Royce who was speaking to her. She whirled around to discover him standing only a few feet away.
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” he assured her.
Her heart beat mercilessly against her ribs. She blinked as though she wasn’t sure she should trust herself not to have conjured him up. Her emotions were exhausted. Her nerves shot. This charade was killing her in inches.
“Shall we?” Royce held out his arms to her.
Catherine didn’t question the right or wrong of them holding each other on the dance floor. Nor did she object when he slipped his arms around her waist. It was as though they’d been partnering each other for years. Their bodies were in perfect sync, they moved in flawless harmony, swaying naturally, rhythmically to the music.
Catherine’s eyes held his, so greedy for the opportunity to study him that she didn’t care what he could read in her eyes or who saw them. Nothing mattered but Royce. Her life had been a confused jumble from the time she’d first met Royce Nyland. Why should anything be different now?
“Why do you have to be the most beautiful woman here tonight?” Royce whispered the question close to her ear.
“It’s in the genes, what can I tell you?” Catherine teased, and was rewarded by the feel of his mouth smiling against her hair. She knew he was holding her closer than he should, but she couldn’t bring herself to ease away.
“I’d give everything I possess to be able to kiss you right now.”
Catherine’s response was half moan, half sigh. Unfortunately, she was feeling much the same thing herself. She dared to look into his eyes and was rewarded with the promise of sensual delights. For sanity’s sake she quickly looked away, but it didn’t prevent a hot flush to her cheeks.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to say things like that...at least not here.”
“Oh, and why’s that?”
“Royce,” she groaned, “you know why. Oh, stop, please stop...someone might notice.” His hands were on her waist, and he was dragging her even closer, to a more solid intimacy. Her body was aligned with his in such a way, she could feel every subtle, and not so subtle, part of him.
“Let them look,” Royce challenged, his words a low growl in her ear.
“But...”
His lips brushed her cheek. “Do you think I care?”
“Yes,” she cried. “We both care.”
“Not anymore.” Once again his lips bounced lightly against her forehead.
“What...do you mean?”
“I mean there’re reasons for us to do this sort of thing without worry, without fearing the consequences.”
Catherine’s heart clashed like two giant cymbals beating together. Holding her breath, she eased her head back so she could examine his face. His eyes readily met hers, and Catherine gasped softly at what she saw. Love. A love so strong and so determined that it would survive whatever they had yet to face. Royce loved her, with a love that defied logic, defied description. A love that was destined to be the moving force behind what remained of their lives. Neither one of them would ever be the same. Neither one of them would want to be the same.
“I love you so damn much.”
Catherine closed her eyes to battle back a flood of feelings so strong they threatened to overwhelm her.
“We’re getting married,” he announced next.
The very eyes that had drifted shut only a moment earlier, shot open. “When? How?”
Royce laughed, that same throaty, hoarse laugh that had haunted her sleep for nearly two weeks. “I haven’t got that part figured out yet, but I’m working on it. It seems, my dear, sensible wife-to-be that I’m about to be transferred.”
“When? Where?”
“That’s something else that has yet to be decided, but it’s in the works.”
He was so close, too close, but she needed that, needed the reality of him holding her in his arms even if they were supposed to be dancing. The fact their feet were barely moving didn’t seem to concern either of them.
“When did you find out?”
“Tonight,” he told her. “Shortly after you arrived. I was watching you, wanting you so much my heart was about to burst wide open when Admiral Duffy decided now was as good a time to tell me my request had been granted. He’d apparently been in contact with the detailers in Washington, D.C.”
“You asked for a transfer...you never said—”
“I couldn’t go on the way we were.”
“Oh, Royce.” She’d been watching him this evening, too. She longed to tell him how she’d looked for him the moment she arrived, hungry for the sight of him. But her throat was too thick. She’d tell him later when she could speak without the threat of tears.
“I want you, Catherine, by my side for the next fifty years. I want to make love to you so often they’ll need another category in The Guinness Book of Records. When I wake up in the mornings, I want you sleeping at my side.”
“Oh, Royce.”
“Right now I want to kiss you so damn much that I’d be willing to risk shocking every man and woman in this room.” His voice had grown reedy with impatience. “Let’s get out of here before I do forget where we are and do exactly as my instincts demand.”
“Oh, Royce.”
“Frankly,” he teased, his mouth tantalizingly close to her ear, “I don’t remember you having such a limited vocabulary.” The music stopped, but he didn’t release her. If anything his hold grew more possessive.
“Royce,” she hissed, “be good.” She feared anyone even remotely glancing at them would immediately know what they felt for each other.
“I want to be bad,” he whispered seductively. “Do you want to be bad with me?”
“Oh, yes...”
“Good, then we agree. Now let’s leave before someone arrests me for thinking what I’m thinking.”
Slowly, with enough reluctance to make her heart long to sing, Royce lowered his arms and released her. “Get your coat and meet me in the parking lot.” A lazy grin slashed his mouth. “By now I’m sure you know which car is mine.”
“Royce, I...do you honestly think...” Catherine pulled herself up short. “Just exactly how bad do you want to be?”
He chuckled. “I love it when you blush. I don’t think I’ve ever found a woman more appealing than you are right this moment.”
“I think you’re crazy.”
“We both are.”
He left her then, hurrying across the room to make his excuses and gather his own coat. Catherine didn’t linger. Within a few moments she was outside, searching through a sea of parked cars for Royce’s. Before she could spot his black Porsche, he pulled to a fast stop directly in front of her.
