Linda Nightingale: Black Swan

Alas, he hadn't outrun his problems. They, once again, stared him in the face.

The longer Tristan held Holly's gaze, the more she calmed. Dreamily, she watched azure eyes deepen to indigo. Trick of light. When she swayed on her feet, he put his arms around her waist. His lips brushed hers, and her body betrayed her. Her mouth opened for his tongue. Fever for him seared her, body and soul. Willful, hungry hands stroked his bare back. Moaning into the fierce kiss, she melted against him, feeling him hardening against her. God, she could forgive him anything if only he’d stay with her.

When she was breathless, he broke the kiss to nuzzle her neck. She stroked his soft black hair and remembered how good it felt drifting over her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. She glanced over his shoulder, and a shiver iced her spine. The bedroom door was closed.

When had he closed it? He hadn't left her even for a moment. Where was the woman?

He caught her gaze, smiled. She felt high and light, drunk without alcohol. She'd ask these questions…in a moment. No, he'd promised to explain.

Tristan took her hand, led her across the living room. Sparse furnishings freed space for his sculpting. A white leather sofa faced a white marble fireplace. The ashes of some other night’s fire littered the alabaster hearth. Until the day before yesterday, he hadn’t owned a TV. Saturday, they'd shopped and had gotten a cable hook-up, which provided a few hours of entertainment. That night, like many other nights, he'd played for her, then had taken her to bed, caressing and stroking her as skillfully as he coaxed music from the cello.

“Sit down, Holly. Allow me to explain. I know you're shaken.” His voice ebbed through her, quieting doubt, quickening desire. “Would you like a drink?”

Holly did as he asked, sank down on the sofa, and folded her hands, white-knuckled, in her lap. “That woman is still in your bedroom. Why doesn't she do something? She had to see me.”

“She didn't.” His tone left no room for argument.

He wouldn't meet her eyes as he strode across the room to a small antique table. His cello rested in the shadows beneath the cloaked windows. He threw open thick velvet curtains. In the sunburst window, a silver quarter moon floated on a cloud. Tristan

stared into the night as if he'd forgotten her, his total immobility eerie in the twilight. Holly shuddered, biting her lip, suddenly wanting to run.

Tristan rotated his shoulders, tossed back his hair, and turned to smile at her, instantly reading her expression. “Holly, you're staring at me. I don't really have horns, do I?”

She whispered a laugh, shook her head. “You were so still…it was… frightening.”

His gaze fled hers. He lifted a crystal decanter. “Brandy all right?”

No explanation. Merely another question.

She nodded but his back was turned, and he didn't see. “Yes.”

On the circular table inlaid with mother of pearl, there were a decanter, two matching glasses etched with a delicate rose pattern, a stack of unopened mail, and a program from a museum.

Whose letters had he ignored? Except for the cello and the shrouded sculptures, nothing in the apartment revealed anything about this mysterious man. She knew very little about him except that he was a member of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra.

One of the secrets Tristan guarded best—his past.

He tucked his hair behind one ear and smiled over his shoulder. “Excellent. It's all I have.”

Fool that she was, Holly wanted him, in her arms, inside her. Looking at him in his makeshift loincloth got her hot but, “Tristan, that woman is still in your bedroom.”

“No.” He stiffened but kept pouring the Hennessey into two glasses. “I asked her to leave. She did so by the rear stairs. The metal fire escape. Hols, I reiterate, it's not what you think.”

The sheet unknotted, glided to the floor. He faced her but didn't smile—at times she had to win Tristan's smile. As much as she should hate him, the heat of his gaze distilled anger to passion. Men like Tristan understood the power of beauty and charisma. The handsome devil was totally comfortable naked. His feel-good tool, hard and ready when he leaped from the bed, lay softly at rest but she knew how to wake it up. Like a knight in his satin skin, he drifted across the room and knelt to hand her a glass. Their eyes met over the rim and her breath caught. His smile, she thought, looked infinitely sad as he ran his hand over her hair.

“Why?” The question burning her throat came out a breathless gasp.

His eyes narrowed, and she'd have sworn on a stack of Bibles that they were black—sparked with red. “I promised to explain but first I want to show you something. I'd planned to wait until it was finished.” He smiled, and her heart broke all over again. “Needless to say, I'm not a patient man.”

He set his glass on the floor and strode to the corner where his other love lived, and with a flourish, uncovered a bronze of a man and a woman entwined. “Recognize anyone?”

“Oh my God, it's fabulous.” Holly jumped to her feet, cradling her glass to her breast. “So that's what you work on during the day when you are, I quote, not available.”

“The woman is you.” His Irish accent and passionate gaze made her knees weak.

“The man is you,” she whispered, and he nodded.

So why had he sculpted them and screwed another woman. Anger flickered to life.

“Come see.” He wriggled his fingers.

“Later.” She placed her glass beside his, her gaze glued to the floor. “I gotta get going. Should have gone when I—” she ran out of breath, looked up, and squeaked.

Tristan stood at her side, eyes crystal blue not black and red. Was she losing her mind or imagining the shift of eye color? Had she imagined the blood or was it real? The snapshot memory of what she'd seen haunted her. Something she should know or had forgotten fled beyond reach. Silence echoed in the vast room of hardwood floors and fancy Victorian molding. Lord, why didn't she grab her pride off the floor and bolt for the door?

As he gently urged her down on the sofa, Tristan's hands on her shoulders fired a thousand sensations and emotions. He sat beside her, stretching his long legs in front of him. Both crystal brandy snifters remained untouched. He rested his head on the sofa, blue-black hair spilling over the back, and closed his eyes.

His sigh echoed the sadness she'd glimpsed in his expression. “I didn’t have sex with her.”

“You don't owe me any explanations.”

His finger dented her lip. “You think I lied when I said I loved you. I didn’t lie. I do love you. Hols, you don't know how good for me you've been.”

He shook his head, and she couldn't resist when he took her in his arms, pulling her close to his bare chest. His lips wandered over her hair, the indefinable scent of him—he never wore cologne—making her pleasantly dizzy…and weak with wanting.

“I was lost when I came to Seattle,” he said, butterfly kisses wandering her face.

When did I lose myself?

A month ago, Holly had been named Photography magazine’s most promising newcomer. When she’d rented a downstairs apartment in the two-story Victorian, she’d been focused on her career. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected to fall into bed with her mysterious upstairs neighbor. Late for a shoot, she'd punched the up button instead of down, cursed as the elevator opened and the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen boarded. She wanted to suck the lower lip of his smile. Brass gates of the refurbished Victorian elevator swung closed. And Holly fell in love at first sight.

Romantic, Black Irish Tristan was just her style, the archetypal artiste. The fiery musician and the zealous photographer seemed a match made in heaven until she’d stumbled into hell a few minutes ago.