Safari Moon

by Rogue Phoenix Press

  In a calculated yet innocent gesture, she untied the little bows that held the shoulder straps of her camisole together. The strings dropped seductively, one fell across her breast the other down her back. Part of the material slid away as she reached out to him, reached out in the silent emptiness of their wedding night. And Solo felt miserable.

  With tremendous effort, he turned away from temptation, strained for control yet when he spun back, it became apparent he had none. He stretched out beside her and told himself he would hold her, nothing more. Reminded himself that to feel the length of her against him would be enough, but he was wrong.

  Nyssa wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer and tugged at his shirt so the tails came free. He heard the contented noises she made when she ran her fingers across his back, his stomach, hesitated at the front clasp of his waist band.

  He was only human and she was a beautiful woman.

  Yet in the far recesses of his mind, he knew he couldn’t let this happen. He met her hands with his own, holding them still. Her fingers, small and fragile, were engulfed by his and he wondered at the vast differences between them. Slowly he brought her hands and wandering touches away from his zipper and to his mouth. He kissed each knuckle and every fingertip.

  But that gesture opened new gates of soul-damning temptation. When he lowered her hands, he saw revealing curves, creamy skin, and one rosy crest peeking negligently from white silk, begging for his attention.

  “Nyssa.” He held himself in check as he cupped her chin. “We can’t do this.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Her voice was so damn sexy, so beguiling.

  Hell!

  “Of course you don’t darling. I’m leaving now.”

  Before he knew what she planned, she was on top of him, straddled across his stomach. His hands had found their way to the soft curves of her bottom and met soft--soft, rounded flesh. A picture of white lace stockings and panties that were barely there greeted him. She looked wanton and anything but innocent sitting over him, her hair wild and disheveled.

  He wanted to paint this image into his mind forever.

  Nyssa bent over and kissed him, long and hot and he couldn’t think straight. She had the sweetest, most velvety mouth imaginable, and she kept purring.

  He tried to stop himself, tried to count backward from one hundred but only got as far as ninety-seven. A futile endeavor. What mortal man could have accomplished more? With her small, warm hands sneaking up and down his chest, her round, enticing bottom molded to his fingers, he didn’t have a prayer.

  He was so hard it was painful. Aching for fulfillment, he knew he had to remove her from on top of him or he’d explode.

  Solo tried to lift her away but she fell against him, the tips of her breasts brushing against his naked chest. One quick turn and he could have her beneath him. Another swift move and--

  “Oh, darlin’.” He let his fingers rove, storing up all the memories he could.

  Before he argued himself out of making love, Solo swept her beneath him, his body pressing down on hers.

  “Nyssa, sweet, innocent darlin’, you feel so wonderful,” he said. “What am I going to do?”

  “Make love to me, I hope.” Through his trousers, her fingers encircled the hardest part of his body.

  She wasn’t drunk. He knew that. But he had filled her glass a few too many times, and considering all that he knew about Nyssa Harrington, he couldn’t account for the boldness she displayed right now in any way except the alcohol.

  Her smile was seductive, her hair was spread across his pillow and over her breasts in a wild tangle of blond curls; her eyes were wide deep pools of smoldering heat.

  Solo had never felt so frustrated and confused before, never wanted and desired someone he couldn’t have. And he’d never had a wife before. A wife he was afraid to touch. A wife who crawled all over him and begged him to make love to her.

  His attempt to ignore her didn’t work. He nipped hungrily at her neck, up higher to her delicate pink earlobe and her sexy little sigh egged him on, tugging at his restraint. One kiss then I’ll stop. One more--

  Solo couldn’t leave though he tried. Bracing his hands on either side of her head, he really did push away, but Nyssa wound her hands around his neck and pulled him back. He gave in and lowered his head to feather kisses across her cheeks and nose. He couldn’t remember finding so much pleasure and desire in a woman as right now--with Nyssa Harrington.

  This was a terrible time to regain a conscience and an awful time to remember a fiancé, hers. Jealousy ripped through him. He couldn’t bear the thought of old Robert seeing her like this, holding her the way he did, touching her.

  Yet while he used every argument he could think of to curb his own desires, she tore at his clothes--pushed them away. Her arms warmed his back, pulling him closer and she wouldn’t give him the opportunity to stop. Still his inner voice raged at him, condemned what he wanted so desperately.

  “Nyssa,” he said, with barely controlled desire. “Don’t touch me.”

  “You don’t like this?”

  Her hand delicately stoked and cupped him once again. Hell, he couldn’t stand much more.

  “Nyssa, we agreed on a hands off marriage. You remember?”

  She must not have because she kissed him, roughly, and her tongue invaded his mouth. Exploring. Nyssa was hot but he felt hotter, his restrained simmer reaching a hard boil. He pulled back, his forearms resting by her head. She looked at him, her eyes bottomless pools of steamy sensuality.

  “Nyssa, I won’t do this with you.” He heard the quiver in his voice and despised his weakness.

  She looked confused and vulnerable.

  He’d hurt her but what else could he have done? He’d tried to do this gently, attempted to ease the situation. Suddenly she not only closed her eyes to him, he felt as if she’d closed her heart and mind to him too.

  That was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? If she’d carried on like this for one minute longer he could not have turned back.

  “You all right, pumpkin?” he asked.

  She opened her eyes and a small tear slid from one corner and moved down the side of her face. He brushed the moisture away with his thumb but he wanted to kiss it away.

  “I don’t like--pumpkin.”

  Her tone was matter of fact, resigned and he felt like the lowest of low.

  “I’m supposed to be in control here. I’d blame myself if anything happened that you’d regret. I won’t cause you more problems.” He caught himself before he blurted out how much he loved her. Instead, “I’ll be gone in the morning.”

  She appeared cold. The ice maiden was back. She detached herself from him with an elaborate show of pride and some hostility. “To the wolves?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t know what to say. This was a new and different Nyssa. Before he could understand what was going on, she was at the door, holding it open for him. She didn’t look at him again, just stood there--waiting.

  “I’ll see you in a week with pictures to catalog.”

  ***

  Nyssa spent a restless night. She wasn’t tipsy enough for the alcohol to put her to sleep. Everything she’d done the evening before embarrassed her, and she remembered how he felt, the taste of his kiss, all of him in perfect detail. When she thought about what happened, how she responded. She would never forget his rejection of her.

  Not once had she thought of Robert--good old Robert. Oh, yes, she felt guilty but not because she hadn’t thought of Robert but because she didn’t want to think of him. She’d wanted Solo to make love to her.

  As for Stephen Oliver Lawrence O’Neil St. John, he could go on his little adventures. He could go anywhere he damn well pleased, but she wouldn’t do him any more favors.

  Solo had left the room with the admonition that he’d see her in a week. Because the wolves make better company than I do.

  Maybe she should leave right now. That thought didn’t help he
r disposition. She’d never run out on Solo or anyone before. When she pushed the covers aside, she realized for the first time what she had on, or more accurately what she didn’t have on.

  She’d never thought about it before--Solo seeing her in something like this--never considered the possibility.

  Unable to find a robe, she wrapped a hand made quilt around her, each square, symmetrical and colorful. Padding to the window, she looked out on another dreary wind-blown day, a day that without Solo would stretch out in front of her forever.

  His jeep sat in front of the house, engine purring but he wasn’t in the driver’s seat. If she ventured out of her room to the kitchen, she might run into Solo. She might share a cup of coffee or breakfast with him before he left for the more tolerable company of his wolves.

  Nyssa sat down on window ledge and burst into tears.

  A few seconds later, the door opened. Before Nyssa could stop crying, Solo was beside her on one knee, poetic justice, surely not. Quickly she jumped from the seat, a toppled lamp following with a crash. “Solo,” she said. If she looked wild and deranged from a sleepless night, he didn’t give any indication that he noticed.

  If he’d had a sleepless night, she couldn’t tell for the spring in his step and the alert look in his eyes. But that didn’t tell her what he planned or why he stood in front of her instead of driving away like he was supposed to.

  “What do you want?” she said with a look she hoped would make him think she didn’t care what he did as long as it wasn’t with her.

  His hands flew into the air in an act of surrender, but he grinned at her and the concern in his eyes a few minutes earlier vanished. Her chin tilted upward in a further show of childish defiance or pigheadedness.

  “To make sure you’re all right before I leave.”

  “How sweet.” She gathered the quilt tighter and picked up the fallen lamp before she lumbered awkwardly to the door in order to hold it open for him.

  He lifted a silky little piece of lingerie from a chair and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, his thoughts readable.

  She opened the door wider, the invitation clear and meaningful. At least she hoped so.

  “Nyssa, I want you to understand.”

  “I already do.”

  “No--you don’t.”

  She left the room, the door wavering between opened and closed. She had the crazy impulse to walk straight to the jeep. It had enough gas to get her to the trading post, and from there she could manage on her own.

  “You’re not dressed to go anywhere,” Solo said quietly.

  The words had enough impact to stop her before she left the cabin and acted on her thoughts. “I don’t care,” she said but she didn’t walk any farther, nor did she return to her room. She sat down on the sofa, no longer back-stiff or chin-high but rigid in her own kind-of-way.

  “You don’t mean that.” He gave her a mischievous, devilish smile. “It’s not your style to go out in nothing but a quilt and a few pieces of sexy underwear beneath.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” But she knew the answer to the question, and she didn’t want Solo to tell her what he thought. “Never mind.”

  “It means,” he said, “that I know exactly--in minute detail--what you have on under the quilt.”

  She ignored the danger signals. “I never asked--”

  “Never asked? Now that’s cute. I remember a few choice phrase, like ‘kiss me’ and ‘wouldn’t you like to come to bed?’ and there were more. Would you like me to repeat what you whispered in my ear?”

  She wanted to blend into the woodwork. “It wasn’t all one sided, mister know-it-all.”

  “I’m not a saint!”

  Those words caused a quick and rapid death to the heated conversation they had established. Silence prevailed for an eternity before Solo started in again.

  “Old Robert’s your saint, mister perfect, not yours truly. Old Robert would have never been tempted. Was that it, Nyssa? Was your come-hither attitude a test of some sort? Did I pass or fail? I thought I was noble, a gentleman, and believe me or not I had your best interest at heart.” He mumbled something under his breath, something she couldn’t quite hear all of, about never feeling so much heat from an ice maiden.

  “That’s not fair.” She blew an escaped piece of hair off her face, with the force of her voice and the little snort she emitted. When in the next breath, “I know what I did to Robert was low, low down and dirty but you don’t have to rub my misdeeds in my face, thank you. I’ve punished myself enough, and you don’t have to add your two cents worth and make me feel more guilty than I already do. I know I’m not worthy of Robert--damn you.”

  “Look Nyssa,” he said and pushed the same wayward lock of hair from her face the same curl she’d blown away only a few seconds earlier. “Robert is not good enough for you and don’t you ever forget it. I got carried away last night and I want to apologize. I know this wedding is convenience only, my convenience. I knew you wanted a hands-off policy from the start. I should have had more control.”

  “You don’t have to live with the guilt.”

  “Put last night in the past, pumpkin.”

  Pumpkin. She flitted him a sideways glance and a frown. “With you sharing cabin space with me, that’s not easy.”

  “Well, I can solve the problem. I’ll be gone for a week. I want to see if the wolves come back or if the Colonel scared them away for good.”

  “You don’t want me there?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What is? You want me to sit here and wait for you to come in out of the wild, a club over one shoulder and dragging a caribou behind you? I thought you needed me with you to help shoot the pictures, to catalog and sort negatives. What’s wrong? Haven’t I proven myself willing, able, and eager?”

  “Nyssa!”

  That snapped her to red-alert mode.

  “There’s no need for sarcasm. When I go away, it’s for your own good, your best interest--and mine.”

  “Well, get a move on. Don’t let me stop you.” She got up from the couch and made little shooing gestures with one hand while clinging tightly to the quilt with the other.

  “You know I don’t like the situation any better than you but I have a job to finish. I also know first hand you’d rather stay in the cabin than in the tent I’ve staked out fifty miles from nowhere with only a pack of wolves for company--this one included.” He held out his hands in a gesture of supplication. “I’ve infringed on your time too often and here I am asking you again.”

  Nyssa wiggled her cold, bare toes and squinched them into the rug. “You don’t have to apologize. I wouldn’t have gone along with you if I hadn’t wanted to. I thought of Sarah and I watched her smile. Everything the Colonel said--we were railroaded by the best, weren’t we?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Will you be here when I get back?” With a grim look on his face, Solo stepped out the door but he waited for an answer.

  From the beginning she’d had her own best interest in mind, consequences be damned, one more adventure, one last fling before marriage with staid, respectable Robert. She had never realized how much she wanted Solo to love her, and how painful life would be when the divorce papers arrived.

  “Do I have a choice?”