Then she turned to Travis.
He was lying as she’d left him, completely naked. His hands were clasped under his head, his feet were crossed at the ankles. And, she was disconcerted to see, he was still partly aroused.
Cover yourself, she wanted to scream—but she was afraid her voice would tremble and give away the truth, that she knew how little it would take to arouse him fully, to make him want her. All she had to do was go to him, put her hand around him. Or her mouth. She hadn’t done that, not ever, but suddenly she wanted—she wanted…
She turned away, made what she knew would be a useless search for her slippers, then swung toward him again.
“I’m sure you’d like to shower,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“I think I mentioned it earlier, didn’t I? That there’s another bathroom just down the hall?”
He didn’t speak. He just kept looking at her.
“You’ll find soaps, toothbrushes, towels—everything you need, in the drawers under the sink.
“How very thoughtful of you, Ms. Thorpe.”
There was a warning edge to his voice but she didn’t care. All that mattered was getting him out of here.
“But then, I’m sure all your gentlemen guests tell you that.”
His meaning was clear. She considered correcting him and decided it would serve no purpose except to feed his ego, but there was no way to stop the color from creeping up under her skin. She lifted her chin, just enough so he’d know she wasn’t intimidated.
“I try to be accommodating, Mr. Baron, if that’s what you mean.”
He smiled lazily, sat up and rose to his feet. “Oh, yes, Ms. Thorpe,” he said. His soft drawl, she noticed, was gone. “You surely do. And you’re very good at it. At being—what did you call it? Accommodating.”
She knew her color was intensifying, along with the desire to fly across the room, slap his face and tell him—tell him what? That she’d never done anything like this before? That she still didn’t believe she’d done it? He’d never believe her.
“Mr. Baron.” Alex took a deep breath and tucked her hands into the pockets of her robe. “Mr. Baron, it’s been an—an enjoyable day….”
“But it’s ended.” His teeth flashed in a quick, mirthless grin. “Come on, Ms. Thorpe, don’t be shy. Or is it that you’re trying to act the part of the perfect hostess, and perfect hostesses never want to have to tell a guest, straight out, that the party’s over?”
“Mr. Baron. Really, it’s just—it’s just…” Her eyes fixed on his. “Do you think you could put some clothes on, please?”
Travis looked down at himself, then at her. “My oh my,” he said, eyebrows raised in a parody of amazement, the drawl creeping into his voice again. “However did that happen, I wonder? That I’d be standin’ here in your bedroom, naked as a jaybird, while you stood over there all dressed up in a robe—a robe coverin’ a body which, until a couple of minutes ago, was every bit as naked as mine?” His voice, and his eyes, turned hard. “Or am I supposed to forget little details like that, Ms. Thorpe?”
“You’re making this unnecessarily difficult,” Alex said calmly, even though her heart was thumping again.
His eyes narrowed. He looked at her for what seemed an eternity and then he gave a sharp laugh, reached for his jeans and pulled them on.
“You’re right,” he said. He sat down on the edge of the bed and tugged on his boots. “And why in hell should it be?”
Alex swallowed dryly. The balance of power had just shifted but she didn’t know how, or why. She watched as Travis stood up, grabbed his black T-shirt and put it on. He turned to the mirror over her dresser, ran his hands through his hair as casually as if he were in his own bedroom, then looked at her and smiled. She thought it was a smile, anyway.
“Here we are, two grown-up people.” Still smiling, he zipped his jeans, tucked his thumbs into the belt loops and sauntered toward her. “Both of us well over the age of consent. Isn’t that right, Princess?”
She wanted to move back before he reached her. That smile worried her. So did the way he was moving, like a big cat that knew it had finally cornered its prey. But she’d had enough of being humiliated by Travis Baron to last a lifetime. She was damned if she’d permit him to do it again.
“Yes,” she said coolly, keeping her eyes on his. “It’s absolutely right. I’m glad you see it that way.”
“Why, Princess, what other way could I see it?” He came to a stop only inches away, close enough so she had to tip her head back to keep meeting his cold green gaze. “I mean, let’s just look at how things stand.” His smile tilted and the look in his eyes grew even more stony. “It isn’t as if I was payin’ a social call, Alex. We both know that. You bought me for a purpose—and I delivered.”
She could feel herself beginning to tremble. Don’t, she told herself furiously, oh, don’t let him see that he’s starting to frighten you.
“I damn well did deliver, didn’t I, Princess?” Travis’s tone changed, became as rock-hard as his eyes. “And now you’re tired of playing with the hired help.”
“I have—I have a dinner appointment,” Alex said, trying for some dignity.
“A dinner appointment.” His teeth flashed in a cold smile. “Now, isn’t that nice?”
“Yes. And—and my date’s coming to pick me up soon. So you’d better—”
“Is that a threat, Princess?” The smile glittered again. He put one hand on the wall beside her head and leaned toward her. “Let me give you some advice, Ms. Thorpe.” His voice was low and ominous. “Where I come from, nobody’s fool enough to buy a stud horse without first checkin’ his pedigree.”
“I want you out of my house this minute!”
“Playing this kind of game with a strange man could have turned out to be the worst nightmare you ever had.” His voice was silky with malice. He shifted his weight and, despite her best intentions, she stumbled back a step. “You don’t know me, or what turns me on. I could have done anything I wanted. Beaten you. Bruised you. Left you lying in a pool of your own blood.”
“You’re trying to frighten me. And I don’t like it.”
“Oh, I think you do. I think maybe that’s what turns you on.” She flinched as he encircled her throat with his hand. Her pulse was racing; she felt it jerk beneath his thumb. “A little hint of danger. Knowin’ that the guy you lure into your bed might as easily finish you as—”
“Get out,” Alex said furiously, “just get the hell out of my house!”
“I intend to. I wouldn’t want to keep you from your date.” His gaze dropped to her mouth as he touched his thumb over her bottom lip and slid it along the soft crescent. “But first, I’m making you a promise.”
The words were softly spoken, touched not with malevolence but with something Alex sensed was far more dangerous, something that made her pulse quicken.
“Travis,” she said quickly, “you don’t understand—”
“I do, Princess. Oh, I do, believe me.” His hand slid into her hair, cupped her nape. Gently, inexorably, he tipped her face to his. “I just want to be sure you understand, as well.”
“Understand what?” she said in a shaky whisper.
“This,” he said, and crushed her mouth beneath his.
Alex struggled against him. She told herself that, later, assured herself that she put up some kind of resistance…
It was just that it didn’t last.
She moaned, caught the fabric of his shirt in her hands, opened her mouth to his and gave herself up to the kiss. He swept his arms around her and gathered her into his embrace, lifted her into the cradle of his hips, rocked her against his hardness.
It was like being swept up in a firestorm. There was no time to think, no wondering what was right and what was wrong. She was on fire and the flames were burning too hot, too fast, to contain.
Travis’s mouth clung to hers as he tore open her robe, dragged it off her shoulders and let it puddle at her feet.
He shaped her breasts with his hands, then skimmed his palms down her hips and clasped her bottom. Still kissing her, he lifted her to him again.
“Please,” she said brokenly. “Oh, Travis, please…”
It was the way he’d taken her that morning, the way he’d almost taken her last night…and yet, this would be different. For all the swiftness of their desire, all the raw, primal urgency, Alex felt a sweetness to it now. It made her tremble. She’d wanted Travis to teach her what a woman could feel, but she felt more, in his arms. She felt—she felt…
He put her from him so abruptly that she almost fell. Her eyes flew open. She looked at him through the mist of her tears and saw a face that might have been chiseled from granite.
“You see, Princess? You were wrong. Truth is, I could still be of some service to you, if I wanted.” He smiled coldly. “You think about that tonight, Ms. Thorpe, after you and your ‘dinner date’ come back here for a round of fun and games. Think about it, and about me, while you’re in bed and he’s—”
Her fist whirred through the air, connected cleanly with his jaw. Travis was caught off guard. His head jerked back and a spot of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. Alex gasped for breath as she watched him put his finger to the cut.
“Get out,” she whispered hoarsely. “Do you hear me? Get out! Get—”
She looked around wildly, grabbed the only thing near at hand and hurled it at his head but her aim with the lamp wasn’t as good as with her fist. It hit the wall and shattered into a score of pieces.
Travis laughed and strolled way. “Have a pleasant evening, Ms. Thorpe,” he said, and slammed the door after him.
“Bastard,” Alex yelled, “you no good bastard!”
She spun around, grabbed her robe and put it on. Who did he think he was? Did he really imagine he could treat her this way and get away with it?
She needed—what? A drink. She never drank, she hated the taste of whiskey but by God, a drink was what she needed now, to get the taste of Travis Baron out of her mouth. And then she’d shower.
No. No, first she’d rid the room of any trace of the most despicable man she’d ever known.
She marched to the bed, stripped off the sheets and pillowcases and carried them to the marble fireplace on the other side of the bedroom. She wouldn’t sully the hamper with them, or even the washer.
Grimly, she dumped the stuff on the grate and opened the flue.
“Goodbye, Mr. Baron,” she said, as she struck a match.
And goodbye to whatever insanity had possessed her to have wanted him in the first place.
The pale blue linens went up in a satisfying blaze. Within minutes, nothing remained but ashes. Alex sat back on her heels. Fire was cleansing. Wasn’t that what people said?
Well, she thought, as she closed the fire screen and got to her feet, she felt cleansed.
She stripped off her robe, kicked it into a corner and went into the bathroom.
The only true words Travis had spoken were the ones about her being an adult. She was an adult, free to do what she chose, even if what she chose was stupid. She’d done something she’d always regret but there wasn’t much sense in brooding over it. Besides, in today’s world, having sex with a man you never intended to see again wasn’t exactly a crime.
Alex doubled over and clutched the rim of the sink.
What was the sense in pretending? She’d never forgive herself for today. Never. Not for sleeping with Travis, although that was bad enough. What she’d never forgive herself for was still wanting him, at the end. Even after she’d had time to come to her senses, even after the terrible things he’d said, she’d wanted him. If he’d carried her to the bed, she’d have gone willingly. She’d have trembled in his arms again, cried out his name again, done all those things again…
Alex moaned and jammed her fist against her mouth.
Getting Travis Baron out of her bed had turned out to be easy. Getting him out of her head, it seemed, was going to be just a little more difficult.
* * *
Halfway along the road that led down through Eagle Canyon, Travis snarled an obscenity, downshifted so abruptly that the gears protested and pulled the Porsche onto the dirt shoulder.
“Dammit to hell,” he growled, and slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel.
He’d managed to look nonchalant when he’d strolled out of Alex’s bedroom but the truth was, his gut was churning the way it had before his first bull ride, twenty years ago. He knew he had to calm down. The road was narrow and curving, with enough blind spots to make even him wary, and he’d been storming along it at a speed he didn’t even want to think about. There was no sense in killing himself or, worse still, some other poor soul just because he was so angry at Alex that he could hardly think straight.
One of them was crazy, and it sure wasn’t him.
Travis snorted. Who was he kidding? She was nuts, yeah, but so was he. And he didn’t like the feeling, not one bit.
A while ago, she’d been like a wildcat in his arms. He’d never known anything like it and the immodest truth was that he was a man who’d known a lot of hot, wild women. But there’d been more to this woman than heat. Her hesitancy, her shy yet eager reactions to everything he’d done and said, had been different from anything he’d ever experienced.
And the last time they’d made love, at the end, she’d cried.
“Did I hurt you, Princess?” he’d whispered.
“No,” she’d said, “oh, no.”
And she’d clasped his face in her hands, brought his mouth to hers and kissed him with a sweetness that had pierced his heart.
He’d smiled, and kissed her gently. Held her close, until her breathing eased, gone on holding her, looking at her, trying to figure out how he’d gone from wanting nothing more than a primitive act of dominating male vengeance to wanting everything from the beautiful stranger in his arms.
And then she’d opened those eyes of hers, looked at him as if he were a rattlesnake she’d found tucked in the sheets instead of a man, and told him, in no uncertain terms, to get his ass out of her bed, and out of her life.
He could feel the rage still pumping through his body. Never, not once in his entire life, not even when he’d come home and found his wife in bed with her damned tennis pro…not even then had he been so plain-out furious at a woman. Hell, he’d never even imagined a man could be this angry at a woman.
Travis turned on the engine.
Okay. Yes. Definitely, the thing to do was to put some distance between Alex Thorpe and him.
Either that or drive back up the road, march into that mausoleum of a house, toss her over his shoulder, carry her back to bed and ride her until that snooty look tumbled from her face, until she arched her back and lifted her hips, wound her arms around his neck the way she had before.
Or he could gather her into his arms, hold her close to him, just hold her, with his face buried in her sweet-smelling hair, her lips against his throat, while the long afternoon turned into night.
Travis’s jaw tightened. Man, he was losing it!
He reached for the key, slammed the car into gear and took the Porsche, engine screaming like a banshee, down the canyon road at a speed that would have astonished even him, if he’d been thinking about anything except the insanity of wanting to see Alexandra Thorpe again in this lifetime.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ALMOST two weeks later, Travis slipped off his headset, made sure everything in the cockpit of his Piper Comanche was secure and stepped out on Espada soil for the first time in close to two years.
It was a hot June morning, with the kind of airless and oppressive heat he remembered from his childhood. Insects buzzed and hummed in the grass alongside the parking area, just as they always had, He had the crazy feeling that his father was going to ride into view, look at him from under his bushy brows and say, “Boy, why’re you here, lazin’ around, instead of at the barns, doin’ your chores?”
He was
n’t in the mood for this, not for the old memories or for dealing with Jonas, or for being polite to the couple of hundred guests who were sure to be here by this time tomorrow. It seemed he hadn’t been able to be polite to anybody lately. Even the guys at his office were steering clear of him, ever since he’d almost knocked Pete Haskell on his butt the Monday after the auction.
“Hey, Baron,” Haskell said, “how’d it go with the Thorpe babe?”
“It went fine.”
Travis’s response had been clipped. Any intelligent man would have seen it as a warning and backed off, but nobody had ever credited Pete with a surplus of intelligence.
“It went fine,” Pete had mimicked, with a leer. “Details, Baron. We want details. Is she as hot as she looks? Did you get into her pants?”
Travis had shoved him, none too gently, against the wall, which was pretty stupid considering that getting into Alex’s pants was exactly what he’d wanted—and what he’d done.
“Watch your mouth,” he’d snarled at Pete, after two of the other partners had pulled him back.
Nobody much had bothered with him since, and that was fine. He knew he was grumpy but hell, it had nothing to do with Alexandra Thorpe. He was busy, that was all. A corporate merger gone bad and a liability suit against another client looked as if it was headed for a jury trial. He was overworked, was all.
His bad mood didn’t have a damned thing to do with Alex Thorpe…
“Cut the crap, Baron,” Travis muttered.
It had everything to do with her, and why wouldn’t it? No man wanted to be dismissed, the way he had. His mood was foul and spending a weekend with Jonas was not going to improve it.
Travis turned on his heel and looked at the Comanche. Nobody knew he’d arrived. All he had to do was climb into the plane, head west to the coast…
A hand clamped down on his shoulder.
“Do it,” a familiar voice growled, “and I swear, I’ll hunt you down and take that empty head of yours for a trophy.”
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