The Signature (A Perfect Forever Novel) Read online

  She wanted him to smile at her the way he did when she was doing the thousand little things she did each day as Christine Dillon. Nothing in her life had ever made her feel quite so good as the way Devon made her feel when she looked up into his eyes and saw herself through them.

  “It’s all bullshit, Devon,” she said, losing her own humor. “Attitude! There’s nothing remarkable about it.”

  He reached out to her then, to lightly caress the gentle slope of her cheek. “It’s not bullshit. You’re like sunshine. You light up the sky.”

  Then why have your eyes suddenly lost their light, Devon?

  “Do you want to get back to work now?” she asked, wanting to pull out of this emotional morass she had somehow fallen into.

  “To tell you the truth, I could use a break,” Devon replied. He was on his feet. “I have a column I need to finish and a few phone calls that I should make. Can we continue, later? After Katie’s gone to sleep?”

  It was innocent enough on the surface. She knew Devon continued to write his weekly column, e-mailing them to LA, even though he was working on her story. Why did it feel as if he were trying to put some space between them? As if he were eager to get away from her at this moment?

  Krystal shrugged and strived for a light tone. “Sure, Devon. Whatever you want. After Katie has gone to sleep then.”

  Her story jumped. They had left off the day before with the downward spiral of her marriage to Nick, and she had picked up today with her journey to safety with Katie. Devon knew what she was doing. Skittering around the most painful parts, working slowly into them, perhaps still uncertain she could share them.

  They were almost through with the interview, except that missing chunk explaining her relationship with Morgan and Nick Stafford’s last, brutal act. In his mind, Devon already had the articles mapped out. Her story was beyond anything he’d hoped it would be. A few missing details, some solid hours of writing, and he would be done.

  Would it ever be done? There wasn’t a message from Morgan. Devon’s heart was completely lost to Krystal. Could he go back to his life in Los Angeles without her?

  It was the only realistic possibility for how this would end. The gap between them either here or in Los Angeles was too great to ever hope to bridge.

  “I’m all talked out for tonight, Devon,” Krystal murmured, pulling Devon from his musings. “I’m so hoarse I can’t believe you can even hear me. I’m surprised your ears aren’t worn out!”

  Devon found the added huskiness to her voice very erotic.

  He reached out a hand, brushing wayward strands of hair from her eyes.

  “You look worn out. It was selfish of me to keep you up for so long talking. I get to sleep in the morning. You have to go to Fritz’s first thing.”

  She rolled over on her pillow beside him, poking him playfully in the ribs. They were lying on the floor before her fireplace, so close together that the heat of their bodies merged.

  “Thanks a lot. You do know how to wound a woman’s ego. No matter how awful she looks, it’s a man’s duty to make her believe she looks wonderful.”

  “Duty, huh? Maybe this will convince you how wonderful you look.”

  He bent his face to hers and felt a thrill when she didn’t pull back. He had not touched her once since the interview began, and he wasn’t at all sure she would welcome him now that the truth was between them.

  Her flesh was warm against his lips, warm and sweet and inviting. He took his time, trailing kisses towards her mouth, exploring her face with light strokes of his fingertips, wanting to memorize each gentle slope.

  He didn’t know how they had gotten to this point tonight, and he didn’t want to analyze it. Her lips accepted his, opening with a passion that surpassed what they had shared before.

  He had known it would be erotic, kissing her now that she breathed so deeply inside him, especially after the longs weeks of buildup, waiting and wanting. But he hadn’t expected this almost crushing wave of other emotions that swept through him.

  He put his arms around her, pulled her close, almost in fear that her wonderfully pliant, female flesh, blending into his own hard male body, would vanish into thin air.

  It was only a kiss. But so much more...

  He filled his hands with her hair, those silky, tawny waves which were soft like angel hair. He was afraid to touch her more intimately, afraid of doing anything that would make her retreat again behind the wall she’d put between them.

  As it was, she pulled back anyway. He forced himself to let her.

  Her face transformed into an exaggerated, comical look. Devon knew that expression well; it was a look Krystal hid behind often.

  “I’m supposed to go to sleep after all that,” she mocked, husky and breathless.

  This was his place to laugh. Krystal the humorist. With a lightness he didn’t feel, he said, “No, kiddo, we’re supposed to make love.”

  She tried again. “Oh.” This time she gave him a lopsided smile. “So they haven’t done away with that in the two years I’ve been in exile. One reads so many things in the press. I thought that sex had become prohibited.”

  He tapped her on the nose. “Only in Coos Bay, it seems.”

  He sprang to his feet. There was no point in trying to pursue this with her. All her defenses were fully operational again. She knew how to wall him out, but it pleased him that the effort was no longer an easy one.

  Krystal looked up at him. “Then it’s a good thing we are in Coos Bay. I liked that too much.”

  “Too much?” Damn, what was she trying to do to him?

  Her blue eyes searched his face. “Too much, given the situation we’re in. You said you understood. You gave me your word, Devon.”

  It was a crack in the armor. A small one, but it was there.

  Lowering down on one knee in front of her, Devon traced the tense line of her cheek with a fingertip. “I never expected you to make me fight so hard to keep it.”

  “I never expected to have to fight so hard.”

  She turned her head away from him and stared out at her living room.

  “This is an illusion, an aberration, us being here together like this,” she whispered sadly. “The world and its problems seem far away here in Coos Bay. But never quite far enough to make us seem possible, Devon.”

  He knew that she was right. It changed nothing for him.

  “It’s too late to pretend that what we’re feeling isn’t what we’re feeling, Krys. We’re both aware there’s something more between us than friendship.”

  She looked down at her hands. “Casual sex was never my forte, Devon. I know it might seem unbelievably old fashioned, given the type of lifestyle you believe I’ve lived, but sex is a commitment for me. I don’t crawl into bed with every man I have an attraction for, even if that attraction is as powerful as this. I don’t want to cheapen myself to make wanting you more important than every other part of me, just so I can indulge in a few nights between the sheets with I man I can have nothing more than a brief affair with.”

  He should have let it go at that. He couldn’t. He said quietly, “My feelings for you are anything but casual, Krys. Do you think all I want to make out of this is a meaningless one night stand?”

  “What makes you think it could ever be more than that? How could it ever be anything more? I’m living an existence where nothing is ever more than temporary. Whatever we have, that’s what it would be. Temporary. Don’t ask me to do that.”

  He didn’t need her to explain. He knew the situation as well as she did, in some ways the unlikelihood of it all even better than she did. The problems: that she was trapped in Coos Bay for survival, and that his life was rooted a thousand miles away in a city she couldn’t dare go to. The complexities: Morgan; the unfinished tangle of her past; and that he belonged in the world of Krystal Stafford about as much as a fish belonged in the desert sand. That last complexity hadn’t even occurred to her yet, because she had learned to live without hoping to return
home.

  “The interview is almost done, isn’t it?” she asked quietly.

  Devon knew the point she was making. He nodded.

  “Another day and you’ll have it. My entire life story scribbled away in that notepad. Then maybe two, three days to compose it into something someone might possibly understand. And then you’ll go home to Los Angeles, your next story, your family, your life.”

  She was right. But the way she made him feel made anything seem possible.

  “I don’t have to leave when the story is done. I could stay, Krys.”

  Her smiled was sad. So sad.

  “And do what? Putter around in my garage refereeing Jason and the boys? Get a job with the Coos Bay Gazette? This is oblivion, Devon. My own private exile from the world. My trap, Devon, but not yours. One wrong step, Devon. That’s all it takes for my world to tilter off course into disaster. Then running again, building a new identity, if we’re lucky to escape. Could you stay and live a life like that? Would you be willing to go to prison for me?”

  She was right again. It was impossible, unrealistic, and absurd.

  “I could come back. Often.”

  “In and out of my life. Stealing little pieces of what we can, praying that we’re not discovered. Don’t ask me to jeopardize Katie’s safety for that. How often could you come here before someone began to wonder why? Began to probe it?”

  Not often. But then again, they wouldn’t need long if Morgan managed all the things he had promised to do.

  He aimed to speak, but Krystal quieted him with her fingers. She said, “Give some thought to what I’ve said before you tell me again it’s possible.”

  They sat, very quiet, very still, before Devon moved gently, taking her finger to guide over his lips. He drew the soft underside of her wrists to his lips and pressed a kiss on her smooth flesh. The touch of his lips ran up her arm, through her veins, into the sensitive depths of her body, no longer closed off.

  “Give some thought to that before you tell me it’s not.”

  Devon eased slowly away from her then.

  She looked down at the wrist he’d kissed. She felt him all through her—and he had only kissed her wrist! She’d never known the touch of a man this way, but it still wasn’t enough to make her believe that anything hopeful could come between her and Devon.

  At that moment, her love for him was so powerful it took control of every other part of her. It gave her the power to step back from him.

  She could never let him do what he was asking her to let him do. She could never survive the pain of another loss if she let this man any further into her heart, a loss and parting that was inevitable. And she could never let him risk everything, from his job to his family to his freedom, for her.

  As long as she never let him cross the line, it wouldn’t be too late to save them both.

  CHAPTER TEN

  As they traveled up the winding road, barely wide enough to accommodate one car let alone two, Krystal tried to concentrate on the sun-drenched scenery rather than the hairpin turns.

  “Why won’t you tell me where we’re going until we get there?” Krystal asked, suspicious, fighting not to grab onto her arm rest as they moved through a particularly rough stretch of road.

  “I’m taking you to the top of the world,” Devon said, grinning.

  “I don’t think we’ll find the top of the world anywhere near Coos Bay.”

  They were back to this. Teasing. Pretending. Caution. She had set the tone for the day, answering the un-voiced questions in Devon’s eyes, and he had followed suit knowing that she needed him to back-off again.

  “How about as near as we can get an hour from home?”

  She searched his expression and felt her heart melt. “I’m on to you, you know. I know perfectly well what you’re doing!”

  His green eyes sparkled wickedly. “I hope not. I’d hate to think of myself as so transparent at my age.”

  “You’re taking me up this dreadful road knowing full well that I’ll be forced to suffer through every probing question you ask me, because I’d even rather finish the interview than travel this nightmare back home a moment sooner than necessary!”

  His low chuckles made her tingle.

  “I hadn’t thought of that, but now that I know you have a weakness for heights, I’ll hold you completely at my mercy from now on.”

  Softly, trying not to give away too much of her disquiet, Krystal said, “I’ve been at your mercy since the day we met.”

  “What’s this? A compliment? If you don’t behave, my ego will be impossibly inflated when I return home.”

  His grin had a lazy sexiness that made her smile against her will. “That wasn’t a compliment,” she corrected, trying to sound stern. “I’m at your mercy because you are the most exasperating man I have ever known! I don’t know how you keep talking me into things!”

  She felt a fingertip on her lips, teasing the stiff line, as he said, “Krystal. Admit it. Aren’t you glad that you decided to work out here? Wouldn’t you much rather be here with me in all this splendor than tucked away in the house while I scribble notes? It’s good to get out. As your friend, I have only your best interest at heart.”

  She shoved his hand away, turning her face toward the window, so he couldn’t see her smile.

  “Then why, if you have my best interest at heart, do I feel like I’ve been run over by a fast moving truck! Men like you ought to be locked up for the sake of women’s sanity.”

  His laughter was husky and soft. “Another compliment. Two in one day. A man could get used to this, sweetheart. One more and you win the grand prize.”

  Arching a brow, she asked, “And what would that be?”

  Meeting his gaze, she realized her mistake too late and was only vaguely aware that they’d pulled off the road and were parked.

  They weren’t playing anymore. Hot- and cold-running currents rendered her body immobile, as he leaned near enough that his warm breath teased the tense angles of her face. They weren’t pretending now, and it had happened this time without either of them sensing it in time to stop.

  “You win me.” He packed that answer with enough sensual promise that she felt her heart shift into overdrive.

  His lips met hers. The pressure and temptation was all around her. The heavy onslaught of sensations made the breath catch in her lungs.

  Overcome by fright and desire, she begged in a tremulous whisper, “Is it too late to take back any part of what I said that entered me into this crazy sweepstakes?”

  “Much too late.” He lips gently gnawed her earlobe; she shivered. She knew what he was trying to tell her.

  Devon lifted his mouth to hers, teasing it open with small strokes of his tongue, disarming her. Her insides began to collapse in slow waves. The feelings that had lain dormant inside her came blaring back in sudden, shocking intensity.

  “Devon...”

  Although Krystal spoke his name in panic, Devon found no resistance as his lips spread warmth down her neck.

  “You can’t imagine how hard it’s been. Wanting you, but not touching,” he whispered, his arms gathering her against his chest.

  But she did understand. It seemed as if she had wanted this man forever.

  Her eyes fluttered open. “Devon, please. I thought we had an understanding.”

  She thought she felt him nod slightly. She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t let this happen. Where would they be if she did?

  Through the storm of emotion, she felt Devon’s fingers lightly span her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen. Being with you, like this, I guess I just got carried away.”

  She wasn’t sure which hurt more: his arms letting go or his words. She watched him, lips parted, breath quick, feeling suddenly as if they were a million miles apart.

  “You know why I can’t allow this.” She could barely manage the words, but it seemed necessary to say something.

  She could feel her eyes fill up with tears and, just when s
he thought they would give way, Devon pulled her back up against him, kissing her lightly on top of her head.

  “We better get out of this car before my shameless hands get me into more trouble,” he said gently, giving her one quick squeeze before he released her.

  As he climbed from his seat, she felt some of her tension ebb. Struggling to weave her scattering senses back into a comfortable pattern, she was surprised to see a brightly-colored patchwork quilt and a picnic basket dangling from one hand, as Devon opened her door.

  “Somehow, I thought you were a picnic-in-the-meadow type,” he said gently, easing one hand beneath her elbow as she rose from her seat.

  “It’s beautiful,” Krystal breathed, overwhelmed by the splendor of nature around her.

  Behind them, the hills rose in all their glory, untouched by man, and to the west the city lay shrunken and lovely against the sparkling blue ocean crowding its rim. It did feel like the top of the world. And like paradise.

  Her eyes were smiling up at him as she said, “Thank you for bringing me here, Devon. You’re right. It’s wonderful.”

  His hand moved, taking hers, as he guided her through the tall grass. The car was a tiny, black shape in the distance when he stopped. Dropping the basket, he gave her one side of the quilt, and they stretched it wide, smoothing over the soft bed of grass.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” he said, reaching into the basket for china plates and linen mats, polished silverware and crystal wine glasses.

  Krystal could do little more than smile. She hadn’t expected any of this—the beautiful meadow or the basket that had been packed with such obvious care. She felt cherished and pampered and more than a little overwhelmed.

  Accepting the wine glass he held out to her, in a voice that was a touch unsteady, she whispered, “Devon, thank you for thinking of this.”

  “The first time I came here, I thought of you. Of what a perfect place it would be to have you all to myself. You don’t mind, do you? That I’ve been secretly plotting to get you alone here?”