Hell on Wheels: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Karen Leabo

  Prudent or not, cautious or not, it wasn’t in Victoria’s makeup to ignore a creature in pain. And she knew, as surely as she knew her shoe size, that Roan was hurting. She’d thought at first he was just smarting from the tongue-lashing she’d given him, but he wouldn’t still be brooding about that.

  Unable to talk herself out of it, she found an old velour robe and tied it tightly about herself, more in deference to the evening chill than modesty. She couldn’t seem to locate any shoes, so she slipped out the kitchen door with nothing but socks to protect her feet from the damp ground and picked her way through the dark toward the cottage.

  She couldn’t very well hide her approach. Roan had to have seen her coming from a hundred feet away, but he didn’t move.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked flatly when she got close enough.

  “Visiting. Move over.”

  He obliged by scooting over to give her room to sit on the top porch step beside him. As she sat down, she saw the glowing arc of his cigarette as he tossed it over the railing. It was on the tip of her tongue to remind him about fires, but she stopped herself. The ground was wet, and the ember was probably extinguished the moment it fell.

  Besides, she was much more concerned about the fact that Roan wasn’t wearing a shirt. “Aren’t you cold?” she asked. The temperature had already dropped into the fifties.

  “A little.”

  “Why don’t you get a shirt?”

  “Because I like to be cold, okay?”

  His surliness silenced her, but only for a moment. “You know, you haven’t been yourself since … well, since we argued.”

  “Has my behavior given you anything to complain about?”

  “No, I didn’t come here to complain.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Because I’m concerned. And I feel like I’ve done something to upset you—”

  “Other than blowing your stack at me?”

  “You had that coming, and I don’t think that’s the problem anyway. I feel like I’ve done something else, but I don’t know what it could be.”

  “What makes you so sure I’m ‘upset,’ as you put it?”

  “I can tell. Give me some credit.”

  “Yeah, well, whatever’s wrong, don’t flatter yourself. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

  Victoria refused to let his words hurt her. She was sure he was trying to drive her away, and she wouldn’t be driven. “What is wrong, then? I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk about it—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  A supercharged silence stretched between them, growing more taut by the second. Victoria had to resist a powerful urge to touch Roan, to offer comfort even if she didn’t understand why he was hurting. But she knew from recent experience how quickly comfort could turn into passion.

  She tried to think of something to say, something that would ease them out of the awkward silence. But Roan beat her to it.

  “Do you really want to know what’s on my mind?” he asked bitterly. “Do you honestly want to find out what kind of selfish bastard I am?”

  The harshness in his voice scared her. Maybe she didn’t want to know. But regardless of whether she did, she sensed that Roan needed to tell her. “Yes. I want to know what’s troubling you.”

  He sighed heavily. “We were talking earlier about my sister. My baby sister, twenty-two years old. She died scuba diving, but it wasn’t an accident.

  “I killed her.”

  NINE

  Roan knew he’d shocked her. As dark as it was, he could see that her eyes were huge and full of questions.

  “I don’t believe it,” she finally said.

  “It’s true.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  He heaved another great sigh. The incident was as familiar to him as his own face in the mirror. He could recite the facts in his sleep. Not that he would enjoy telling the story, but if that’s what it took to make her go away and leave him in peace …

  “I was in Australia, working on some photos of the Great Barrier Reef for Nature magazine, and Kim decided to come visit me. We were never very close, what with the age difference and all, and I thought this would be a great chance for us to get to know each other, adult to adult.”

  Roan stared out into nothingness as he spoke, turning over the painful images in his mind the way a kid overturns rocks to see what squirmy things lurk underneath.

  “I’d been doing some underwater photography, and I wanted to show her the incredible things I’d seen. She was a good swimmer, but she was afraid to swim in the ocean.

  “I badgered her for a couple of days, promised her over and over that nothing would happen to her as long as she was with me. Finally I talked her into it. I think in the end she gave in because she didn’t want me to think she was a wimp.

  “Anyway, I took her to a calm cove first, and when that went okay we went into deeper waters. Lots deeper. It was way too challenging for a first-time diver, but she was doing so well, I didn’t give it a second thought. I really believed that nothing could touch her as long as big brother was there to protect her.”

  He paused to chance a look at Victoria. She was all rapt attention, leaning closer to catch his hushed words. He could smell a soft, undefinable scent that was hers alone.

  “We were about seventy feet down when Kim somehow breathed in a mouthful of water. She signaled me that she was in trouble, and her first instinct was to shoot for the surface, but I stopped her because I didn’t want her to get the bends. So we made a slow, controlled ascent, and she was gripping my hand so hard …

  “About halfway to the surface, I felt her grip loosen. And when we finally made it, her face was blue and she was unconscious. I dragged her to the beach and did CPR on her, but …”

  “She died?” Victoria finished for him in a small voice. “That quickly?”

  “It didn’t seem quick.”

  Victoria shivered. “I’m sure it must have been the most agonizing few minutes of your life.”

  “It was more agonizing for Kim. I would have done better to just put a bullet in her head—”

  “Roan, that’s not true, and you know it,” Victoria cut in sharply.

  “All I know is that I made a stupid mistake, and I should have been the one to die, not an innocent—” He buried his face in his hands, muffling his words. “God, she wasn’t much more than a child.”

  “You didn’t do it on purpose. You said it yourself—it was a mistake. An accident. How could you even think it was anything else?”

  He balled his hands into fists and slammed them against his knees. “I didn’t think, dammit! I ignored her fears of the ocean as if they were nothing. I ignored all the safety rules because I was sure I knew what I was doing. I thought I was so all-fired invincible that no accident would dare intrude into my world.”

  “But, Roan, we all suffer from bad judgment sometime in our lives. We all have decisions we regret. That doesn’t make us bad people.”

  “Oh, really? When have you ever made a decision that cost someone her life?”

  She was silent for a moment, and he thought he’d made his point. But when she finally answered his question, her words were so soft, he could barely hear them.

  “I decided to change my shoes before running out to tell my father the tornado sirens were going off. That two or three minutes could have made the difference.”

  In the past three years, Roan had never met anyone who could understand what he’d gone through with Kim. He’d listened to their platitudes, shrugged off their comfort, closed his ears when they’d tried to absolve his guilt. He’d been so secure in the knowledge that no one could understand like he did.

  Now, here was Victoria Driscoll, telling him that she did understand. She’d been through it. A decision as mundane as what shoes to wear might have cost her her father’s life.

  When he looked over at her again and their gazes met, he felt a connection to her so strong
and powerful, it took his breath away. The magnetic pull was far stronger than even the most insistent sexual desire, more potent than any compulsion he’d ever had. Yet he couldn’t close the gap between them, those few inches of cold air that represented a fathomless canyon.

  He’d promised, dammit. He’d let her down before, and he would not—

  “Roan,” Victoria’s voice was unsure, like a young girl’s. “You don’t have to be a gentleman tonight if you don’t want to.”

  He stared at her for several seconds, uncomprehending. Then all at once he understood what she was saying, and the enormity of it scared the hell out of him, almost swamping the red-hot desire coursing through his veins. Almost.

  Kissing her seemed too sudden, too radical. He was afraid that if he touched her or tried to hold on to her, she would disappear in a puff of smoke. Instead, he reached out a tentative hand and stroked her hair, all loose and disheveled like he’d never seen it. It was silky soft. And she was real, as real as the porch he was sitting on. More real than any fantasy. Was it just last night he’d dreamed about her hair like this?

  She took his hand and pressed the back to her lips in a sweet, gentle gesture that should have touched his heart. Instead, it sent fire to his loins.

  “Oh, Vic, what you do to me,” he whispered. “But I don’t deserve this.”

  “Don’t say that. No matter what you’ve done, or believe you’ve done, by simple virtue of the fact that you’re human you deserve to be loved.”

  You deserve to be loved. Did Victoria mean love in the physical sense, or the emotional? Was she telling him how she felt about him, or merely verbalizing a universal truth? And why was he debating semantics when she was offering herself so sweetly?

  Already at the limits of his control, he took one look at her moist pink lips, slightly parted, and made a decision he knew could change him forever. He leaned forward and captured those lips with his own, weaving his fingers through her hair as he held her a willing captive.

  As before, the kiss was wild and hot, almost painful in its intensity. Unlike before, he felt no compulsion to stop or pull back. She was going to be his. And even if tomorrow she regretted it, he would still have this night and the memory of Victoria’s understanding, her willing response, her healing touch.

  Her arms stole around his shoulders, her hands like timid birds against the bare skin of his back. Acutely aware of her every breath, every flutter of her eyes, and the soft sounds she made in the back of her throat, he increased the intensity of the kiss, slanting his mouth against hers, invading with his tongue, plundering her sweet recesses.

  She melted against him, twisting herself so that her body pressed against his. Her velour robe tickled his chest hair and rubbed against his nipples as she shifted in an effort to bring them closer together.

  “Ah, Vic,” he groaned against her cheek. She was giving so freely, and all he could think about was taking, taking. He wanted to go slowly, wanted to make it good for her, but she was driving him to the brink of his restraint. And she still had her clothes on.

  He yanked on her belt. The robe fell open and his eager hands invaded, circling her waist, then sliding up to cradle her breasts through the T-shirt she wore.

  Her sharp intake of breath spurred him on. He stroked her nipples with his thumbs and watched the effects on her expressive face.

  “Sh-should we go inside?” she managed to ask.

  He nuzzled her neck. “Mmm, you afraid your mama might be watching out the window?”

  “No, but it’s too cold out here to take off my clothes. And that’s what I desperately want to do.”

  Ah, hell, that she might be cold hadn’t even occurred to him. Selfish to the end, always thinking about his own needs first. Well, not tonight, dammit. He would make this the best lovemaking she’d ever experienced.

  In one swift move he stood and scooped her into his arms. He kissed the surprised look off her face before carrying her inside, slamming the door with his foot, not stopping until he reached the darkened bedroom.

  He set her down and fumbled until he found the switch to the bedside light. A soft illumination filled the room. The double bed was as she’d left it that afternoon, blankets neatly tucked in, the edge of the white eyelet sheet folded back against the blue blanket. With one yank he undid her handiwork. It gave him a supreme sense of satisfaction to know he could now act out the fantasies that had tortured him earlier in this very room.

  He would have fallen to the bed and dragged her with him, but the slightly dazed look on her face gave him pause. Slow down, he cautioned himself. He would scare Victoria to death, or more likely disgust her, if he went after her like a stallion in rut.

  He ran his hands along the collar of her robe, then framed her face and kissed her as gently as he knew how. Her response was not gentle though. She came alive, all sweet, hot fire. Less tentative this time, she clung to him, her nails biting into his bare shoulders. She rhythmically rubbed the back of his calf with her foot.

  He ran his hands along the sides of her neck, insinuating them beneath the robe and scooping it off her shoulders. It fell at their feet, and she kicked it aside with an abandon he wouldn’t have thought possible, meeting his bold gaze with one of her own. He made quick work of the sleep shirt, sweeping it over her head, then pausing to feast his eyes on the gentle curve of her waist and the perfection of her breasts, creamy, soft-looking, the rosy tips hardened into pouty peaks. Without conscious thought he dipped his head and took one of her nipples into his mouth.

  She gasped and trembled, then moaned as her knees gave way. If he hadn’t been holding on to her, she would have fallen.

  “Whoa, there,” he said, moving her closer to the bed so she could sit down. He was awed by her response to him. “I never made a lady swoon.”

  She looked up at him with liquid eyes and a tremulous smile. “That’s never happened before. It must be sensory overload.”

  He laughed soft and low. “Honey, we haven’t even begun to get overloaded.” With that he flicked open the buttons on his jeans, watching her face all the while. Her eyes grew noticeably rounder as he freed his arousal from the confines of clothing. She didn’t say a word, but her gaze never left him.

  When he’d shucked out of denim and cotton, he waited for her to climb under the covers and make room for him. When she didn’t, he realized she was taking all her cues from him. He wondered if she was inexperienced, or just unsure of herself where he was concerned.

  He picked her feet off the floor and tucked them beneath the blankets, then walked around to the other side of the bed and climbed in. “You’re not scared, are you?”

  “A little,” she admitted. “Not scared, really, just apprehensive. I haven’t had time to get used to the idea, and it’s not something I take lightly.…”

  He laid one hand on her tummy and rubbed slow, sinuous circles. His action silenced her. “Don’t be frightened. I would never do anything to hurt you. We’ll just take it slow.”

  Victoria closed her eyes, concentrating on the hypnotic movement of his hand on her abdomen. No simple touch had ever felt so erotic. She would be content to lie there all night and revel in the simple gesture.

  But Roan definitely wasn’t content with that. He trailed teasing fingertips up and down her arms, her neck, her face. He massaged her breasts, squeezing the nipples between his thumb and forefinger until she thought she would die from the exquisite pressure.

  Each time she reached for him, wanting to explore his lean, sinewy body, he stilled her efforts by removing her hand or gently reprimanding her, insisting that she relax and let him pleasure her. She was too weak with wanting to argue.

  By the time he slid her panties down her legs, she was an inch away from begging him to take her. She tried to urge him atop her, but he stubbornly resisted, laughing wickedly. “Man, you’re hot.”

  She didn’t deny it. She could only hope he wouldn’t tease her about it later. She was going against every sensible bone in h
er body, and she didn’t care.

  He stroked the brown curls at the apex of her thighs. “I just don’t want to rush things. I want to be sure you’re—”

  “I’m ready,” she said through gritted teeth. She’d been ready fifteen minutes before.

  He slid his hand between her legs. She gasped as he parted the petals of her womanhood and teased her with one finger. “So you are.”

  “Roan …” But she realized there was no reasoning with the man. Just as always, he had his own agenda and he wouldn’t be swayed from it. Well, fine. For once she couldn’t really find fault with his behavior.

  “Tell me you want me,” he whispered, sliding his finger deeper inside her.

  But she was beyond words, and the best she could do was moan his name.

  He chuckled again, withdrew his hand, and covered her body with his. “I like the way you say my name,” he said between hot, wet kisses. “Your voice turns me on. Always has, from the first words out of your mouth.”

  She responded by opening herself to him and settling him in the cradle of her thighs. He closed his eyes and grew still, as if savoring the moment of their union. Then he sought the warm haven she offered.

  The moment he entered her, her concentration was focused purely on the hot center of her desire. She felt like she’d been hurled from a slingshot into a vast sea of pleasure, and in moments she reached a summit so divine, she thought she would die from it.

  She was still reveling in wave after wave of ecstasy when Roan thrust three or four times and cried out, his whole body tensing as he found his release. The moment was so intense, so unexpectedly swift, Victoria was stunned for a few moments. But gradually she floated down to earth. Her breathing slowed, her heart rate returned to something close to normal.

  Then she giggled. “See what you get for making me so hot and bothered?”

  “I think I made myself more hot and bothered than you. Just be still a minute,” he said when she moved her legs to a more comfortable angle. “You’re not going anywhere.”