The broken whimpers Carla was making finally penetrated Luke’s passion. He tore his mouth away from hers and dragged his hands free of her rich, alluring softness.
“Luke – please – I – “
In the moment before control came back to Luke, he shuddered like a man in torment.
“Sorry,” he said hoarsely, smoothing the hair away from Carla’s face. “I’m sorry, sunshine. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“That’s not – ” Carla’s voice broke. “I didn’t mean – “
She tried to bring herself under control but couldn’t. She made a ragged sound and captured one of Luke’s hands, kissed his palm, then closed her teeth on it in helpless response to the baffling, conflicting feelings raging within her, wanting to caress and savage him at the same time.
“Oh, baby,” Luke said, closing his eyes, his whole body clenched in violent response. “You’re killing me and you don’t even know it.”
“I’m sorry,” Carla said shakily, shocked by her own actions. “I don’t know why I did that. I just – just – “
He didn’t wait for her to finish her sentence. “I’ll forgive you if you do it again.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Only harder, baby. Harder.”
Luke’s body tightened as Carla sank her teeth into the pad of flesh at the base of his thumb. Her barely restrained violence told Luke that her frustration equaled his own, and she didn’t even know what she was missing. The thought of giving her what she needed sent a searing rush of blood through his body that nearly undid him.
Watching Carla, feeling as though he were going to lose control with the next breath or the one after, Luke lifted his hand, licked the small marks she had left on his skin and saw her tremble. His fingers closed on his collar and he pulled sharply. The shirt came undone with a rippling sound as metal snaps gave way, revealing a dark pelt of hair and muscles gleaming with firelight and desire. His hand shot out and wrapped around her head, pulling her against his naked chest.
“Again,” Luke whispered.
Uncertain, Carla brushed her mouth over Luke’s chest, raked him lightly with her teeth, tasted the salt of his passion and the fierceness of his restraint, inhaled the exciting smell of skin and soap and male heat Slowly she put her mouth against Luke again, tasted him again, felt the unbridled sensuality of his response. A soft, fragmented sound came from her lips as urgency rushed through her, twisting her, making her ache. Her hands clenched against his chest “Harder,” Luke said, watching Carla with burning golden eyes. “Go ahead. Bite me. That’s what you want You’re shaking and tied up in knots and you know I’m the cause of it and you want it to stop but you want it to go on forever, too. You’re frustrated and on fire and confused and you want to take it out on me. Do it, baby. Do if.”
With a small, wild cry, Carla did what Luke urged, what she wanted, what she needed. Her teeth sank sensually into the flexed muscles of his chest, testing his strength and her own restraint at the same time. He made a hoarse sound of pleasure and encouragement. Her fingers worked through the wedge of springy, silky hair, pulling and kneading, her nails biting into his hard flesh even as her teeth did.
Luke laughed and urged Carla on while he undressed her. His words were dark and hot, punctuated by the ragged rush of her breathing and his own. The scoring of her nails down his chest was like wild, hot rain, and the primitive caress of her teeth was stroke after stroke of lightning scorching through him, setting him on fire. He didn’t know how much longer he could endure the sweet torment, but he knew he was going to find out. The thought of denying himself one fiery instant of Car-la’s passion was worse than any frustration he might feel at the moment.
With a hoarse groan Luke finally pulled Carla’s mourn up to his own and devoured her in a ravenous kiss that would have frightened her only minutes before; but now she needed that fierce claiming more than breath itself. She put her arms around his neck, tangled her fingers deeply in his hair and gave back the kiss with an unleashed passion that matched his.
The world spun again as Luke’s hands moved over Carla like hard, warm rain, dissolving everything away, leaving her naked and shivering in his arms. He held her, felt her shaking, heard her broken breaths and remembered all the years he had spent dreaming of having her offer herself to him again and his own vow that he would be gentle if she ever did. Cursing his own nearly overwhelming need, aching, burning alive, he fought for self-control.
Carla called his name, her voice breaking.
“It’s all right,” Luke said tightly. “I won’t hurt you, sunshine. You’re so wild that I forgot you’re not used to this.”
She forced herself to breathe. “C-can you get used to this?”
“Being naked?”
She shook her head. He saw the helpless shivering of her body and waited, but she said nothing more.
“What?” he urged softly.
Carla made an odd sound and dug her nails into Luke’s chest in an unconscious gesture of sheer frustration.
“Wanting,” she said, her voice aching. “And not having. Wanting and wanting and wanting.”
Before she had finished speaking, Luke turned away and began stripping off his own clothes, throwing them aside. When he turned back to Carla and lay on his side again, she was sitting up, looking at him. All of him. He froze, motionless, regretting his haste and the fact that she had never seen a naked, aroused man before; and he had never been more aroused. He saw the change in her expression, the heedless passion suddenly checked, as though the blunt reality of his hunger had shocked her.
“Still want me?” Luke asked, his voice rough with restraint.
Carla’s only answer was the glide of her fingernails over Luke’s chest, down the center line of his body, below his navel to the thatch of dark hair. There she hesitated for a moment before she touched the evidence of his desire with curious fingertips. When he jerked reflexively, she looked up into his blazing golden eyes.
“I don’t know which is more exciting,” he said thickly, “seeing your sweet curiosity or feeling it.”
“You don’t…mind?”
Slowly Luke shook his head, then caught his breath as Carla’s soft fingertips found each irregularity in his hot flesh and lovingly traced it He had never known such a fragile, tender, consuming exploration. He had never guessed that he could be so aroused without losing control, but he refused to consider letting go, because even in sexual release he had never known such wild pleasure as he was discovering right now.
“Will you mind?” Luke asked, running his hand caressingly along Carla’s calf, her knee, her inner thigh.
“What?”
“When I touch you the way you’re touching me.”
Before Carla could answer, his fingers had discovered the soft, swollen, sultry flesh at the apex of her thighs. She made a startled sound and reflexively closed her legs around his hand.
“Is that yes or no?” Luke asked, rubbing gently, finding and stroking the nub hidden within her soft folds.
Carla’s breath broke as pleasure showered through her, a wild, unexpected cascade of sensation that made her shudder. He felt the sudden, small melting, saw mist bloom beneath the firelight on her skin and wanted to lower himself over her, sink into her, filling her, bathing his aching flesh in her passionate response. Eyes closed, back arched, moving helplessly against his touch, she shivered again, melted again, searing him with her heat.
“Sunshine?” Luke whispered, caressing Carla with tiny motions, tearing a moan from her lips. “Look at me.”
Carla’s eyes opened, dazed by passion. His hand moved again, sliding over her, gilding her with the sultry rain of her own response. He wanted more, much more of her, but he didn’t want to take it. He wanted her to give herself to him while she looked at him, knowing every bit of what was happening.
“Don’t hide, baby,” he said softly. “Open for me.”
For a moment Carla looked at Luke; then his fingertips moved gent
ly and pleasure shimmered and burst inside her. With a small moan she shifted her legs, allowing him greater intimacy, wanting it as much as he did.
“That’s it,” he said, his low voice both praising and encouraging her. * “Brace yourself on your hands and relax those beautiful legs for me.”
As Carla leaned back, Luke’s fingers moved coaxingly, skimming her flushed skin, teasing her, asking silently for what she had given no other man.
“L-Luke?”
“It’s all right,” he said, his voice deep. “Just a little more. Open just a little more. Let me – ” His voice broke as Carla obeyed, allowing him into her softness. “Oh, baby, you’re like honey.”
He shuddered even as she did, pleasure rushing wildly between them at the slow glide of his caress, penetration and retreat, a silken measuring of her ability to receive the gift of his body. Slowly he rose over her, kneeling between her legs, redoubling and deepening his presence within her softness. When his thumb found and teased the velvet focus of her passion, she sank back onto the sleeping bag with a hoarse cry.
Luke froze, afraid that he had hurt Carla despite all his care.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded brokenly, looking at him, moving helplessly against his hand, caught up in an urgency that stripped away everything but her incandescent need. “Oh, Luke, if you stop I’ll die.”
“Sunshine,” he said, “baby, are you sure?”
Carla’s body answered for her, bathing Luke in sweet fire, burning away all his questions. Slowly he lowered himself over her. The teasing of his fingertips was replaced by the hard flesh she had so recently explored. The satin caress sent ripples of pleasure through her, expanding rings of sensation that burst sweetly, melting her in rhythmic waves. Gently Luke rode the waves of her passion, letting them ease his way, merging with her gradually, lovingly.
The slow consummation wrung a low moan from Carla. She had never felt anything so exquisite as the merging of flesh with flesh, the elemental fire of her lover’s body blending with her own equally elemental rain. A lightning stroke of pain flashed through her, but it swirled away and was lost in the glittering, gathering storm that was consuming her – Luke’s mouth on her neck, her throat, her eyelids, and his fiery words licking over her. She arched upward again and again in the primal rhythm of the union. His body enfolded her, surged deeply within her, a part of her. She tried to tell him that she could take no more, the pleasure was too great, she was dying; but the only word she could say was his name. A glittering darkness swept over her, followed by a wild shimmering of her body that shook her to her soul, hurling her into ecstasy.
Luke heard his own name called again and again, a passionate litany that echoed the rhythmic tightening of Carla’s body beneath him, around him, demanding all that he had withheld, all that he was, all that he had. Her name was a hoarse cry torn from his throat as passion exploded into a release that was unlike any he had ever known, violent and tender at once, ecstasy convulsing him savagely, softly, endlessly, as he gave himself to the woman he had sworn never to take.
14
Carla stirred and reached out for the muscular warmth she had become accustomed to during the night. When her hands found nothing but cool air and emptiness rather than Luke’s big body, her eyes opened. An instant later she saw him. Wearing only jeans, he was standing at the edge of the overhang, sipping coffee, watching a land swept clean by rain. As though he sensed that she had awakened, he turned around. The hot cascade of sunlight pouring in behind him made it impossible for her to see the expression on his face.
Without a word Luke came and sat on his heels next to Carla’s sleeping bag. Light illuminated half his face, leaving the other half in darkness. For long moments he watched Carla with tawny, enigmatic eyes. Cradled between his hands, the metal camp cup sent fragrant steam into the air.
“Are you all right?” he asked finally.
She nodded and slid her hand from the sleeping bag’s warmth to touch the smoothness of Luke’s freshly shaved cheek.
He closed his eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Luke, what’s wrong?”
“When I washed this morning…” His voice faded. “You bled last night.”
“It didn’t hurt then. Or now.”
Luke said something rough underneath his breath and stood up with an abrupt surge of power. “You were a virgin.”
“You knew that before you – before we – ” Carla stammered. “Luke, I told you. You knew!”
“Yes,” he said savagely. “I knew. But I didn’t really know until I saw your blood on my body this morning. Then it all became real. Too real.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “God, what a mess!”
Carla felt as though she had been struck. Stunned, she said nothing.
Without looking at her, Luke stalked back to the overhang and stared broodingly out over the uninhabited land.
“Well, schoolgirl, you got what you wanted,” Luke said after a moment, sending the dregs of his coffee arcing into the sunshine with a brutal snap of his wrist. “I hope to hell it was worth the price.”
“I don’t – don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do. That’s what being young is all about. Doing and not understanding. But I understand. I should have walked away from you. I knew it the same way I know fire is hot and rain is wet.” Memories tightened Luke’s body, echoes of a passionate night he would never forget “But I didn’t have the strength to walk away from you.”
Carla felt cold seeping into her flesh, settling in an icy lump at the pit of her stomach as she remembered what Luke had told her weeks before: Stay away from me, sunshine. I’m afraid I won’t have the strength to say no. Then I would take you and hate you…
“Get up, Carla. I’ve got water warmed for you. After you wash we’ll go into town and make a bigger mistake than we made last night But there’s no help for that either.”
There was no inflection in Luke’s voice, nothing to tell Carla what he was thinking.
“What will be doing in town?” she asked warily.
“Can’t you guess, schoolgirl? This is your lucky day. You’re getting married.”
There was a long silence while Carla measured the hard features of the man she loved.
“Why?” she asked.
Luke made a savage, impatient gesture. “Last night that’s why, and you damned well know it You came to September Canyon a virgin. No man worth the name would take that from you and give nothing in return.”
A slow, complex anger blossomed in Carla. She had dreamed of marriage to Luke, but never under these circumstances – duty and honor, not love.
He didn’t love me years ago. He didn’t love me last night. He doesn’t love me now.
Nothing has changed.
Then Carla realized that something had changed; she wasn’t a child to run from Luke’s anger anymore. Nor was she childish enough to cross her fingers, marry a man who didn’t love her and hope that it would all work out.
“The rest of your life seems an excessive price for a fast toss,” Carla said evenly.
Luke gave her a sharp look but saw only a feminine reflection of his own lack of expression. That surprised him. He had become accustomed to watching moods and emotions move across Carla’s face.
“I knew the stakes when I took cards in the game,” Luke said curtly, looking away from the elegant feminine curves rising above the sleeping bag’s dark green material. “Hurry up and get dressed. If we don’t get out of here quick, we might not get out for days. It’s already raining in the highlands. Won’t be long before it gets wet here.”
“Don’t let me keep you.”
“Your baby pickup won’t get one hundred yards the way the road is now. You’ll have to come with me. We’ll get your truck later.”
“No.”
“What?”
“No,” Carla repeated coolly. “N-o. A word signifying refusal. A negative. The opposite of yes.” Each syllable was clipped, unflinching. “I’m not goi
ng with you in your truck. I’m not going into town with you. I’m not marrying you. I came to September Canyon for a vacation. I’m going to have that vacation. If you don’t like it, you’re free to leave.”
Luke’s head snapped around. He had never heard that precise tone from Carla, smooth and remote and utterly controlled, telling him that he had no right to order her around.
But she was as wrong as she was naive. He knew what had to be done. “Listen, schoolgirl – “
“I’ve listened,” Carla interrupted, “which is more than you have. One. I’m not a schoolgirl. Two. You’ve made it very clear that you don’t want to marry me. Three. There will be no marriage.”
“Four,” he shot back. “You might be pregnant. Ever think of that, schoolgirl? Or are you on the pill?”
“N.Y.P. cowboy,” she said with a calmness she didn’t feel.
“What does that mean?”
“Not Your Problem.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Of course it’s my problem! Or didn’t you know that it takes two to make a baby?”
“And only one to carry it. Guess which one of us that is? N.Y.P, cowboy.”
Luke glared at Carla. She didn’t back up one inch, giving back a stare as level as his own. He measured her determination and realized that the deep well of passion he had discovered in Carla wasn’t limited to making love. The girl who had fled from his passion three years ago had become a woman with cool blue-green eyes and hot flags of anger flying in her cheeks. The combination was…exciting.
Angrily Luke felt his body respond as it had always responded to Carla. His lack of control over himself made him furious.
“What are you planning on telling Cash when you start losing your waistline and your breakfast?” Luke asked coldly.
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