The look he shot her sent a diffuse rush of heat to her face. “For me? Who said it was for me?” He bent and blew on a ladleful of soup. Hesitantly, he pursed his lips and sucked in a mouthful, clucking his tongue around in his mouth with approval as he swallowed. “Mm, just right.”
Goldilocks. The absurd thought popped into her mind and she let out a sarcastic snort. “So said the arrogant, mean old bear as he sampled the porridge.”
One inky-black eyebrow arched sardonically. “You’ve been reading too many bedtime stories. Now,” he said as he dropped the utensil back into the pot, “get out of that…lovely dress of yours.”
The vague insult riding the slight sneer in his voice didn’t go unnoticed. But she let it pass and crossed her arms over the damp nightgown. Tapping one slightly numb foot against the furry rug, she snapped back, “I will not.”
“You will.” His deep voice, oddly quiet and firm, filled her ears with a shiver.
He took one step toward her so that she could feel the inferno of his chest singe her breasts more headily than the blaze of the fire. Even though she stood tall herself, she had to tip her face up to meet his stare. She poked her glasses further up her nose to look straight through the lenses. His eyes bore into her, black instruments pinning her in place, leaving her no choice but to look intently back at him.
And something about that moment that passed between them, about the brief flash of hazy recognition that flashed in his eyes then faded just as quickly, assailed her with the wrath of God. He wasn’t trying very hard to remember, that she was sure of. In fact, it almost appeared as if he purposely pushed the remnants of recollection aside. Pure, blatant denial is what it was, whether consciously or subconsciously, she didn’t know. But, the evidence of that wrath she’d suddenly experienced seconds ago, pounded in her head in the form of lethal, carefully controlled, blessed restraint. Despite the pleasant indulgence of his nearness, she reaffirmed her decision to keep up the identity farce. Power. She had all the power here. Oh, but how it rankled her! How could he be this close to her, have held her so tenderly only moments ago, and still not know who she was?
The internal question plagued her, ate away at her gut like acid and made her all the more determined to punish him. Okay, so the irresistible attraction was still there, she admitted. But that didn’t mean she had to act on it, or give him the satisfaction of revealing her identity. It was his problem not hers that he didn’t remember her, and she refused to help the egotistical fool along and clear up his lame confusion. Jewel had the upper hand, whether he knew it or not. She would hold that one single trump card very closely and guard her heart with it if she had to die trying.
He set his jaw, a gesture that should have warned her far in advance. His eyes never leaving hers, he raised his hand. Before she realized what he’d intended, the sharp swish of ripping fabric filled the cabin.
Jewel gasped. She looked down in horror to see that both of her breasts bulged from the gaping slash he’d just made of her gown. Having hooked his fingers in the high neck, he’d yanked downward with a firm sweep. The row of tiny fasteners gave way, and dozens of buttons popped and went arcing across the room, tapping against the wood floor in a click-and-pop tune.
“You son of a—” She started to step back and raise her arms to cover herself, but he proved to be quicker than lightning. An animalistic fire lit his eyes, frightening yet oddly thrilling her. Both of his hands rose this time, and jerked the tattered edges down and over her shoulders. The gown had been fairly loose before its destruction, so there was no counting on it clinging to her hips in her defense as it fell. Horror-stricken, Jewel watched as the entire weighted-down garment plopped to the floor at her feet in a split second. With it went her panties, as if connected to the gown.
“How dare you!” Her own voice rang in her ears with pathetic desperation and vulnerability. Humiliation filled her soul, igniting a level of anger she’d never encountered before. Though removal of the cold, damp fabric from her skin, coupled with the sudden wash of heat from the fire, gave her instant relief, she bent and fumbled to grasp the gown, to pull it back up and cover herself. His hungry gaze flitted down to devour her naked flesh, and damn it, but those black-as-sin eyes burned her hotter than the fire had!
He knelt before her, and she paused without choice when he gripped her hand firmly, halting her attempt to raise the tattered cloth. “No. You will not keep the damn thing on.”
“Oh! You pompous ass!” She gritted her teeth together and raised her free hand. But once again, he demonstrated his expert, reflexive power over her. He caught her arm just before her hand made contact with his cheek. Her wrist ignited with a searing fire, while her palm itched to feel the sting of contact.
“That’s enough.” He stood and dragged her up with him, and another brief sweep of his eyes over her hot flesh had her womanhood smoking with reluctant desire. She ignored the flood of wetness that dribbled out of her cunt. You’re an idiot for deriving any sort of pleasure from this bully.
“You have no right to strip me naked.” Oh, God, was that tears she felt stinging the backs of her eyes?
He paused, a brief, tender flicker lighting his gaze. But it was just that. Brief. “I didn’t strip you naked, goddamn it!”
She snapped a look down at her own nakedness then back up to narrow her gaze on him. His own eyes had followed the same path as hers, and this time, they remained locked on her breasts as she spoke. “Look at me, damn you. At my face!” She waited until he dragged those black, dark weapons back up to look at her. “I didn’t strip myself. And you claim you didn’t strip me of my gown, so what is it, magic or something?”
The sarcasm in her voice wasn’t nearly thick enough for her. And she supposed it was due to the fact that his heated gaze had fallen once again as she spoke, and currently bounced back and forth between her two taut nipples. He still held her wrists, and the sick thrill that suddenly assaulted her had her fighting to suppress a groan of pleasure. She watched as his mouth fell open in stunned silence.
But not for long. “Oh, I’m looking at you all right. And magic?” He finally lifted his stare and bathed her with eyes that brought to mind hot, thick, potent coffee. “I’m beginning to wonder…”
Lord, this was ridiculous! “Let. Me. Go.” She glared at him through the thick lenses of her glasses, wishing she could conjure up some sort of evil-eye power to strike back at him through the magnification of them.
His nostrils flared as he narrowed his lids. “Not until you promise not to put the frozen gown back on.”
“Oh, and what may I ask,” she purred sarcastically as she struggled to no avail to free her wrists, “do you suppose I don instead?”
He jerked his jaw toward the bed. “Hell, a fucking blanket. Anything that’s dry and warm and won’t make you catch your death of cold.”
Jewel halted her resistance against his hold. She blinked. “Aw, you’re worried about little ol’ me catching a cold?” she asked with a pouty jut of her bottom lip. And even though she continued her act of defiance, his obvious-but-brutal-way-of-showing-it concern had struck a tender chord somewhere deep inside her.
He squeezed her wrists. “I’m worried about having to nurse a stranger back to health in a remote cottage—on a possibly deserted, tropical, but snow-ridden island with no medical facilities nearby. And in a freaking nightmare I can’t seem to wake up from.”
Stranger. Nightmare. The two words had the effect of stabbing her right in the soul and strangling that tender chord of mere seconds ago. Which only served to make her more determined to hide her identity from him. God, how had she ever loved this man? Jewel suddenly wondered. But she had no answers. She only prayed her voice would remain deeply husky from the damage all that coughing had done to her throat. She had to get through this nightmare in an intact piece, and get this jerk exterminated from her heart for good before returning to Vermont.
“Let go of me and turn your back. I’ll obey the master and go wrap my
cold, naked, vulnerable-to-death body in a quilt. Will that satisfy Your Highness?”
He stared at her for a long while, as if he warred with the possibility that she had something else up her sleeve—that is, if she’d had a danged sleeve to put something up. Finally, he released her arms and stepped back, daring her to defy him.
Jewel sent him a haughty look as she turned and splayed her hands over her buttocks with automatic self-consciousness. Despite the mortification she felt at partially baring her backside to him as she crossed to the bed, a relentless thrill at being naked in his presence once again, swirled through her chest and settled down into the abyss of her core. There in those depths, excitement simmered with each step she took, each time her sex-lips glided back and forth over one another with the movement.
But the sensation came to a rolling boil when she heard him moan behind her. And she realized she’d forgotten to demand that he turn his back before she’d turned hers.
Or had she forgotten?
* * * * *
Vince hadn’t been able to suppress the involuntary moan that had escaped his throat. He watched, spellbound by her perfectly shaped ass, as she tried lamely to cover herself, scramble to the bed and yank off the top blanket. With adept swiftness, she swirled it around her until she stood cocooned in its thickness, her pale but interesting face with the owlish glasses, peeping out over the patchwork fabric.
“Happy now?” she snarled, and suddenly that sour face fascinated him even more than before.
He cleared his throat and shifted his stance. Ignoring the heavy engorgement of his cock within the cold, wet boxers he wore, he replied blandly, “Ecstatic. Now get over here and finish warming yourself up. And if you happened to miss breakfast, too, and your stomach is anything like mine,” he added, turning to stir the contents of the pot, “you’re famished about right now. So grab a bite to eat. Never know. It could be our last.”
“We’re obviously in somebody’s house, and it isn’t mine or yours. I’m not so sure we should eat their food, or stay here much longer.”
He’d sensed her approach even before she’d spoken. Her nearness curiously thrilled him, sending a shiver of anticipation through him. His limbs started to warm and his cock to harden. He shot a look at the bed he knew he’d share with her before this hallucination ended. Sex or not, they would share that space. Vince heard the soft scrape of wood against wood as she pulled out a chair from beneath the tiny table. Reaching for two dishes on a shelf to the right of the fireplace, he ladled up stew and turned to place the bowls on the table.
“No, I’m almost certain no one lives here. We’re in a dream, doll. It’s all make-believe. Now eat.” He slid one bowlful of stew toward her, along with a soup spoon he’d located in a tray upon the small corner countertop.
“And if someone does live here?” She huddled in a ball inside the blanket and eyed the steaming stew with undisguised hunger. The sight of her longing for food nearly melted his heart. That protectiveness reared up inside him again, threatening to make him do impetuous things that would only cause the wedge between them to tighten if he didn’t go about things right.
“Trust me on this one.”
She slid him a look that said her trust in him could fit on the head of a pin.
Instead of examining her further, or that protective instinct that annoyed him to hell and back, he scanned the small kitchenette and noted a bottle of wine on ice in the one-basin sink. Had it been there when he’d first entered the bungalow? Shaking his head, he refused to examine the possibilities. This was a bizarre, crazy day he’d woken up to in his apartment in Denver. He supposed a little wine might come in handy to either clear his head, or numb his rampant thoughts of this woman whom he still couldn’t quite place.
And who had the subtle power to strengthen her appeal to him by snarling words just as much as by glimpses of her bare, smooth, soft skin.
He reached for two mugs, set them on the table and unraveled the wire from around the bottle top. Twisting, he dislodged the cork and poured red wine into each of the mugs. He plucked up one cup and took a long swallow, refreshed as the sweet-tart flavor slid down his throat.
Vince sat, refilled his cup and slurped a spoonful of soup, sighing as the hot steam swirled around his nose. The flavor of chunky vegetables and hearty meat filled his mouth. He glanced across the small space of the table.
“What?” he asked. She stared at him, her mouth hanging agog.
“You…you really think it’s okay? I mean, what if The Three Bears or whoever”—her eyes scanned the tiny room—“poisoned the stew?”
He dropped his spoon with a clatter against the ceramic bowl. “You can’t be serious.”
“You know just as well as I do that everything that’s been happening since…since I—we—woke up this morning, is bizarre.” She leaned over her soup, spearing him with a worried stare. “You never know what could happen in a dream like this.”
Ah, so she’d resigned herself to that explanation, as well. “Yes, anything can happen. Anything.”
She blinked, awareness of his meaning dawning in her eyes. Through the half-inch thickness of the lenses, he thought he saw expectant, emerald fire ignite there.
But first he had to slake another kind of hunger.
“Eat. It’s delicious and it’s fine. No poison, see?” He shoveled a heaping spoonful into his mouth, then another. “I’m alive and well.”
She looked down at the bowl and stared for a long while. Hesitant, she instead lifted the cup and drained the wine in one gulp. He immediately refilled it.
Inhaling, she picked up her spoon and blew. The sight of her pursed lips had him fantasizing about them wrapped tightly around his dick, moving up and down on his shaft and taking him in. His loins stirred, filling his cock with blood, making him ache and throb with need. And when she swallowed and sighed, her eyelids fluttering shut with bliss, he nearly came right then and there.
“Oh, this is good.” Was that sincerity, distraction or sarcasm he heard in her tone?
“Yes. Scrumptious.”
“So…” she said lightly, stirring until the carrots and potatoes rose to the surface in her bowl. “Have you ever been in love?”
He gulped, almost choking on a hunk of meat. “Excuse me?”
“Have you ever been in love before?” Obviously enjoying herself, she slurped up more stew, emptying the bowl before tipping her head back to drain the second glass of wine. “It’s a simple, straightforward, easy question to answer,” she said pertly, setting the mug on the table with a sharp rap.
He scraped the last of his soup up in the spoon and swallowed. Shoving the bowl away, he rose, the chair grinding on the floor behind him. “That’s none of your damn business.”
“Ah,” she purred, lifting the bottle to pour a third cup. “Touched a chord, huh?”
What in the hell was she after? A stranger suddenly prying into his personal life? It struck him as odd, almost eerie. “No.”
Jane stood abruptly, her chair crashing to the floor behind her. Strategically preventing the blanket from falling, she set her hands on either side of her place setting and leaned in toward him. But still, he caught an errant glimpse of smooth, full, round breasts. Her cloud of hair gleamed with pale highlights in the firelight as it swept forward across her shoulders, framing her heart-shaped face. Dry now, he noted how it had brightened several shades lighter. His hands flexed with a need to comb through the tresses, to be filled with the ample bosom. A sweet, painful jolt ripped through him, and his mouth went dry with lust. She appeared to note his helpless stare, but nonetheless, her eyes blazed twin flames of ire magnified through lenses that reflected the light of the fire. And suddenly, he could swear he could smell her…the familiar musky scent of a woman, of smoky seduction from long ago.
Suspicion ate at him, nagged until he had no choice but to demand, “Who are you?”
She smiled wickedly, baring perfect, sparkling white teeth. “I told you. I’m Jane.”
>
Wary hesitation plagued him. He studied her further, noting all the differences. Of course she was Jane, he thought with a sigh. It had been a foolish thought to wonder if this woman could be Jewel Dublin, the woman who’d walked out on him years ago without a peep since. He swept her with an assessing gaze. No, his ex-lover couldn’t possibly be one and the same with this person. But even though everything else appeared different, the personalities were strangely similar. Vince inhaled deeply, attempting to dispel the tension. The combination of anger, confusion and desire she’d stirred in him wouldn’t settle. He was clearly losing his ever-loving mind! Fantasizing, wondering if one person—who obviously wasn’t—could be another. Hell, did he miss her that much?
No, it couldn’t be. Or maybe… No. He just wasn’t sure how he felt about Jewel Dublin anymore.
But he was sure of one thing. This woman wasn’t who she claimed to be, and she was definitely up to something. He couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but it would come to him eventually. Oh, but he’d get it out of her one way or another.
He scooped up his bowl and turned. Dropping it in the sink on top of the ice, he snarled, “Yeah, and I’m Tarzan. Now—”
They both turned as the door flew open and crashed against the wall. Wind and snow blew in, and suddenly, out in the tumult of the storm, it was as if someone had flipped a switch. The dull gray of a winter’s day turned to pitch-black night. A white tornado of snow whirled, moaned and swept across the room until it reached the fire. Biting, chilly air filled the bungalow, and the warmth of their breath turned to puffs of white condensation.
With a loud buzzing noise, the twister spun and snuffed out the fire.
Still in his damp boxers and no shirt, he shivered in the darkness. And he knew this meant one thing. They would have to unite physically to survive, or freeze to death before this nightmare ended. For some reason, Jennie was deriving wicked pleasure out of throwing the two of them, different as night and day, together in this dream.
Me Tarzan, You Jewel Page 5
