Michael dreaded the two long nights ahead of them while waiting for their flight back to Montana. With separate bedrooms and him feeling the way he did, he knew he was bound to create problems neither he nor Rochelle needed. He wanted her, but jealous anger aroused such conflicting feelings he did not have the inclination to seek her out, thus, causing him to curse his damn stupidity.
To hurt her with what he was feeling would not be fair. Yet, his jealously was so replete, he felt helpless to deal with it. He kept asking himself how a woman could lie beneath a man and not respond. If she responded, wasn't she participating? Pondering the reasoning of an if this, then that mentality, he built a strong case against Rochelle. As uncharacteristic as it was of him to feel jealousy, it now crippled his objectivity. He loved Rochelle and resented her at once. He knew his insidious thinking was unwarranted, knew Rochelle wasn't responsible for anything Tobias did to her; but it failed to restore normal thought to his screwed up mind.
Jealousy! It was the most bitter and useless of all emotions.
Michael realized it was like a sick disease; yet, he failed to find an antidote against its potency.
He lay upon his bed, stripped down to briefs after showering, one ankle thrown over the other, staring up at the ceiling. She was in the next room with an adjoining door between them. For the past thirty minutes, he had considered numerous approaches to that door and her room, and none of them made more sense than the true reason of simply wanting to be with her. Finally, finding the bed too confining, he pulled on his trousers, and walked toward the door between their two rooms. He raised a fist, about to knock, when he stopped himself.
Damn it, he thought. What is wrong with me? He had spent a fortune hiring men to aid him in her rescue, had risked all their lives to that end, and now he did not have the nerve to knock on her damn door. He fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling some more, mentally cursing himself.
Rochelle finished her shower, toweled dry, and put her clothing back on, expecting Michael to join her. She took a brush from her purse and brushed her hair until it shone with a lustrous splendor of wild curls and shimmering satiny waves. She paced the floor a few times, waiting for Michael. She went to stand at the adjoining door, then put her ear against it, thinking she heard someone breathing on the other side. It must have been her imagination, she decided, and turned from the door, a nagging emptiness gnawing inside her.
The longer she waited for him, the more uneasy her doubts became. The two of them had not said a great deal to each other on the trip from Miami. She credited it to the fact that they were not alone; yet, she instinctively felt something was bothering Michael.
Finally, deciding Michael must have fallen asleep, she stripped off her clothing down to her bra and panties, and fell exhausted upon the bed, feeling suddenly alone and unwanted. She yearned to have Michael near her.
ROCHELLE WAS DOZING FITFULLY when the soft knock sounded on the adjoining door. It was so soft she was not sure she had even heard it. Then it came again, and she rose sharply to a sitting position, throwing her feet off the side of the bed. She tiptoed to the door and listened. “Yes?” she whispered so softly she could barely hear her own voice.
“Chelle, it's me, Michael. Open the door.”
She unlocked the door on her side and pulled it open.
“Honey, I'm sorry if I woke you. I had to see you.” He gazed at her, the sweet smell from a recent shower emanating from her person. Here she was, in body, spirit, and mind, the love of his life, turning his stomach sour with the bitter bile of jealousy.
“Oh, Michael,” she murmured dismally, “I thought... I just thought...”
“What did you think?” he whispered softly, reaching out to touch and caress her cheek.
“I thought you didn't want to be with me.”
He laughed with irony. “Not want to be with you! I've traveled nearly three thousand miles to find you again, and you think I don't want to be with you?” He reached out his arms.
“I'm sorry, Michael, for doubting you. It's just that I'm...”
Rochelle needed no further coaxing. She went into his arms, her breasts pressing against his naked chest, their hearts pounding like hammers against each other.
Michael's hands glazed over the smooth softness of her back, undoing her bra, pulling it off her shoulders and tossing it aside. His hand crawled up beneath the mane of hair to the nape of her neck.
Slanting his mouth over hers, the tip of his tongue flicked across her lips in a fierce melding of need. His lips burned and enticed, their fiery insistence warming Rochelle to the core of her womanhood. It was the reunion she wanted, had expected.
God, it had been too long, Michael thought now as desire rose and his deft hands scorched every inch of Rochelle's desirable body with his heated caresses. Backing her toward the bed, he strung a path of hot kisses down to the hollow of her throat.
Then he lowered her to the bed, his powerful muscles flexing with strength as he supported her weight. Brushing her face with kisses, his lips made a trail down her tingling flesh to taste the ripeness of taut nipples that seemed to quiver beneath the plundering of his tongue. Covering a nipple with his mouth, he sucked on the small orb, the globes of her breasts rising and falling in passionate surrender. He was lost to something more demanding than jealousy—the gathering of stormy passion in his needy body.
Michael wanted more than anything to give Rochelle as much pleasure as she was giving him, but as he kissed and fondled her, removing her bikini panties, his hands and fingers claiming the sensitive areas photographed in his memory, his manhood throbbed out of control with need. He touched her wet moistness, content with her readiness, and he hovered above her, his manhood brushing the fertile path of her femininity, then sinking deep inside her moist warmth.
In an answering response, Rochelle slid her long slender fingers over the rippling muscles of his shoulder and back, down to his firm buns that hovered above her. She touched her tongue to his ear, the tip fondling and teasing the tiny hollows inside, her teeth nibbling gently at the lobe.
With a groan that verged on pure pain, Michael silently extolled the joy of his pleasure, moving with purposefulness to deliver similar joy to the woman he loved. He moved slowly at first, in and out, deeper and deeper, until her hips came up to meet him and claim all of him.
“God, how I've needed you,” he declared, smothering her face with kisses as his passion rose to a precipice with hers. Then they both plunged over the edge in a flaming whirlpool of quivering, hot-white fire.
In the aftermath of their frenzied lovemaking, Michael raised himself on his arms, staring at her delicate face through the shadows of the pale light penciling in from around the outer edges of the draperies. Her face, embedded into his memory for all time, was the face of the woman he loved.
Rochelle reached up, touching her hand to the beads of perspiration on his face, straining to see his shadowed features. She traced the outline of his lips, and planted a tender kiss there. “I love you, Michael.”
“I know,” he said huskily, bending to feather a kiss against her lips. She became silent with expectancy, and Michael was certain she waited for him to declare his love for her. Sadly, now that his attention was less focused, the hateful jealously came flooding back leaving him voiceless. He rolled to one side, keeping her coupled with him, their hips and thighs joined.
Rochelle wanted to hear him say it, wanted to hear him admit his love for her. He wrote it in his letters, had even mumbled the words the afternoon they had made love before Tobias abducted her back to Miami. Neither of those times, however, sufficed. She wanted to hear it now, needed the sense of security the three little words could give her.
Her heart felt suddenly heavy with regret that Michael failed to say the one thing capable of clearing her disturbing doubts. Even while he held her, his hands glazing gentle caresses over her back and shoulders, there was darkness in his mood that she sensed and felt. It sorely bothered her that even during intimacy he put a barrier between them.
Michael was not aware Rochelle might read something into his quietness. Enraptured by the surrounding warmth of her womanhood, he savored the passionate intensity in the aftermath of their lovemaking. Lying sated with her still in his arms, he should have been the happiest man alive, especially after successfully rescuing her from Tobias. Nonetheless, niggling thoughts of Tobias's intimacy with Rochelle destroyed his peace of mind as nothing else could. How could he come to terms with the fact of sharing her with another?
Feeling a mixture of anger, repentance and guilt, his hand slid over her breast and along her abdomen to her navel. His hand froze.
In his mind's eye, he could see Tobias doing the same thing. His head reeled out of control, his breathing becoming short and labored. His jaw clamped tightly shut until he could hear his teeth grinding together. He was actually experiencing an anxiety attack, and knew he had to get the hell out of there and back to his room.
“Michael, what is it?” Rochelle implored in a troubled tone. She sensed his distress, felt it in the tense stiffness of his neck and shoulders.
“It's nothing, honey. I'd better go back to my room.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I wouldn't want the boys to find me here in the morning.”
“No,” she cried, holding his arm, wanting him to stay with her.
“Don't leave me, Michael.” It was a heartfelt plea.
“I have to go,” he said too quickly, breaking away from her.
“The guys might be trying to reach me in my room.”
He hastened to his room, closing the adjoining door. Leaning back against it, he inhaled deeply to fill his starving lungs with air.
For a couple of minutes his chest felt so tight he was certain he was having a heart attack, but after a few minutes, he was just as certain it was a bad case of nerves reciprocating to an overdose of anxiety.
Michael cursed the demons inside him. His anger had shifted from Tobias to Rochelle. Now he had an inkling of how men's minds worked when they turned abusive toward their spouses or girlfriends. He knew he would never stoop so low as to turn abusive, at least not physically, but there were other types of abuse, and he knew Rochelle was feeling the affects of it. He also knew he had to get control. The problem was that his brain did not want to cooperate.
Rochelle sat up in bed and reached to turn on the light. Doubts unfurled and multiplied. He did not love her! The thought pounded like tiny hammers against her skull. He could not possibly love her, or else he would not have made love to her and then walked out while she pleaded for him to stay. He traveled nearly three thousand miles to get her. When had he decided it was all a big mistake?
Whatever Michael's problem, it started prior to him coming to her room. The fact it took him so long confirmed that suspicion.
Still, it had not deterred him from wanting her body! That angered her.
Suddenly she felt dirty and unclean the way Tobias had always made her feel. Michael's lovemaking had been no more than an interlude, a moment of pleasure quickly forgotten when he was finished with her. Nothing he might have done could have made her feel less despicable than having made love to her and then hurrying from her bed as if he could not wait to get the hell away. A number of feelings trespassed across her mind: sadness, shock, humiliation, and finally, an ache so agonizing it was like a sharp knife slicing away at her peace of mind.
Dragging herself from the bed, she went to the bathroom, smelling the faint manly scent of him still on her where his perspiration dampened her body. Turning the shower taps on, she adjusted the temperature, and stepped into the stall, feeling lousy and terribly alone.
Deserted.
MICHAEL HAD NO IDEA what time he finally fell asleep. When he did, he had damnable dreams where he actually watched Tobias making love to Rochelle. It was too much for his fragile nerves to handle, shooting his disposition all to hell. When daylight came, he was exhausted, and as grouchy as a hungry black bear. He did not want to see her, not in this frame of mind, so when Joe buzzed his phone and suggested they go have breakfast, Michael had other plans.
“Take Rochelle with you, Joe. I'll catch up with you after I shower.”
Joe was silent a moment. “You sure, Mike? I'd think she'd want to wait for you.” He knew Mike had been with her last night, at least for a while. He and Curly both had called his room to see if he wanted to go out for a drink with them. When he didn't answer, they laughed at their ill timing and went out without him.
“I'm sure,” Michael replied too sharply, and Joe backed off immediately.
“We'll be in the motel dining room,” Joe told him and hung up.
“What was that all about?” Curly asked as he sat in a chair in the room he and Joe shared.
“I don't know. I think the little lady must have turned him down last night. He is in some hellishly sour mood this morning, and I sure would not expect that if she had made him happy last night. I guess there's trouble in paradise already.”
“Maybe he didn't get enough sleep,” Curly suggested.
“We both know that sleep is the last thing you care about when you're in bed with a beautiful woman. I think he slept in his own bed, else he wouldn't have answered the phone yawning like he just woke up.”
“Well, when we knock on her door, maybe she'll be in a better mood than he is,” Curly speculated with a smile.
ROCHELLE SLEPT SPORADICALLY during the late morning hours before dawn. She woke with the first signs of daylight penciling through at the outer edges of the drapes. She was tried, weary, and emotionally drained. She dragged herself from bed, and took another quick shower to wake herself before dressing. She had no idea what the agenda was for the day, so she turned on the television and sat watching the early morning news, not really seeing it at all. Instead, her mind played a game of you should, as she thought about how she was going to handle coming face to face with Michael this morning.
If she expected a knock on the adjoining door between her and Michael's room, she was sadly disillusioned when the knock came on the front door. Assuming a cheerful pose, she opened it to see the entire crew of five men outside her door. All her well rehearsed posturing took a shock. Her eyes widened, and she looked like she was about to be abducted again.
“Good morning,” Joe said. “You look rested.”
“Good morning,” she replied, looking from one to the other, and not feeling at all rested.
“Ms. Chandler...” Curly began.
“Please don't call me that. My name is Rochelle.”
“Rochelle, Mike said to take you to breakfast. He's running late,” Curly said with an impish look on his face.
Rochelle's heart took another dip, but she was not about to wear her feelings on her sleeve. She marched right along beside Joe while the other four men flanked them on both sides.