“Compromise! Why, you—”
Malachai jumped up from his chair and started pacing before the fireplace. “I can’t believe you asked for my room number at the front desk!”
“Nobody will ever know that was me!” she cried, propelled from the sofa by the same outrage fueling Malachai. “The boy thought I was a man!”
Malachai stopped pacing. Turning slowly, he directed a withering glance at her, raking her from tip to toe and back again. “There isn’t a man alive today,” he said in his most biting tone, “who would ever take you for a man, even dressed in that ridiculous costume.”
She threw out her arms and looked down at herself. “It’s not ridiculous! I looked just like one of those runners the lawyers use!”
Even she, whom Malachai believed to be a mistress of self-deception, among other things, couldn’t say that and sound convincing. He snorted to tell her so.
“Well, I did when I started out earlier this evening,” she said, less vigorously. “It’s dark, after all, and—”
”Is it dark in the lobby?”
He had her there, and he knew it. She gulped. “Well . . . That boy at the desk doesn’t know who I am. He’ll probably think I’m one of your . . . your sailors.”
Malachai rolled his eyes.
“Or a . . . or a prostitute!” Loretta’s face flamed. “Anyhow, he’ll never recognize me again in a million years! I’ll never wear these clothes again!”
It was too much for Malachai. Her total lack of sense, her silly costume, her stubbornness, her blithe belief in her detectival powers, and her smug satisfaction about having been right—damn her—sent him over the edge. With one powerful stride, he blocked her path, and with a single sweep of his powerful right arm, he picked her up.
“You are, by far, the most troublesome female I’ve ever met in my entire life, Loretta Linden.” And with that, and because he couldn’t help himself, he kissed her.
# # #
Offhand, Loretta couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this outraged, although she knew it must have been recently. Malachai Quarles was the only human being she’d ever met who could infuriate her this much, and she hadn’t known him very long.
Then he kissed her, and her rage evaporated like a leaf in a high wind.
It was going to happen tonight! She hadn’t really come here with seduction in mind—this was particularly true when she remembered the clothes she wore and considered how she must look—but perhaps her unconscious mind had taken care of the problem for her. He was kissing her, and she didn’t aim to let him stop until he’d done his duty by her as a woman and an advocate of free love.
She was hanging from his embrace like a rag doll, so she wrapped her legs around his waist to give herself more leverage, and she kissed him back with enthusiasm. He might be the most irritating man in the world, but he was wildly attractive.
His embrace was rather crushing, and Loretta wiggled slightly to get him to loosen his grip a little. She didn’t want to interrupt him, God knew, but it would help her overall state of being if he—
“Uff!”
Loretta’s feet hit the carpet with a thump. Gazing up at him in befuddlement, she said, “Wh-what?”
“What the devil do you have in your hair?” He shook his hand, and Loretta noticed that he’d scratched it, probably on one of the twigs she’d inadvertently picked up at Tillinghurst’s estate.
“My hair?” Curse it, he wasn’t going to stop because her hair was a mess, was he? “I . . . I think some leaves got in it when I was running away from the dogs.”
His eyes widened. “You were chased by dogs?”
She nodded. Blast and hell, why had he become distracted? This wasn’t fair! “According to Mr. Jones—”
“Jones!”
Loretta clapped her hands over her ears. “Don’t shout so loudly! You’ll break my—”
He had her by the shoulders again and had started shaking her, so she couldn’t expand upon her request.
“Do you mean to tell me you were chased by dogs and you found Jones?”
“S-stop sh-shaking me!” Offended, Loretta wrenched herself out of the captain’s hands, sure she would have a whole batch of new bruises. After backing far enough away to avoid a snatch, she propped her fists on her hips and said, “You’re a brutal man, Captain Quarles, and I don’t know why I put up with you!”
Malachai seemed to be trying to regain control of himself. Curse him, she didn’t want him in control. She wanted him out of control with desire for her.
“I beg your pardon,” came, stifled, from his lips. “Did you say you found Mr. Jones?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And that you were chased—” He had to pause and take in air. Loretta watched, fascinated, as his chest expanded to accommodate it. He was such a large man. “—by dogs?”
“A couple of bull mastiffs, according to Jones, although I couldn’t verify their breed since I was occupied in running away from them at the time.”
“Bull—” Again, Malachai stopped speaking, as if compelled to do so by a strong outside force. Again, he sucked in air.
“Mind you, Mr. Jones might have been correct. Their growls and barks were quite deep and ferocious.” Loretta laughed self-deprecatingly. “I have to admit that I was quite frightened at the time. Fortunately I remembered the way back to the fence, where there were trees I could climb.”
She chose not to confess to this man that she hadn’t climbed a tree before in her life, because it sounded pathetic in her mind. She felt the lack of prior tree-climbing experience keenly tonight, and wished she’d had more brothers—brothers unlike the one she possessed. What she’d needed was the Tom-Sawyer-Huck-Finn-kinds of brothers; brothers who did things like climbing trees and running away from dogs and who would take their kid sister with them on their adventures. Her real brother’s idea of adventure was speculating on the stock exchange.
The captain passed a huge hand over his face, as if he couldn’t quite take everything in. Loretta felt obliged to explain further.
“The dogs are the reason Mr. Jones hasn’t tried to escape, you see. He believed Mr. Peavey had been mauled by the dogs. Evidently, his captors told him so, and he thought he’d heard them chasing Mr. Peavey and Mr. Peavey yelling.” She frowned slightly. “Perhaps Mr. Peavey climbed the same tree I did.” It would be interesting to find out.
“Jones is at Tillinghurst’s place?”
Loretta nodded energetically. “That’s what I’ve been telling you! He’s been ever since he and Mr. Peavey were kidnapped.”
“By Tillinghurst.”
“Well, by Tillinghurst’s men,” Loretta temporized, although hiring people to kidnap other people was as bad as doing the deed oneself in her opinion. Perhaps it was worse.
Suddenly the captain turned his back on her. Dismayed, Loretta stared at his broad shoulders and tried to think of a way to renew his interest in her body. She wished now that she’d taken the time to change her clothes and clean her scratches. She’d had no idea Malachai Quarles could be so easily distracted from so intense an instinct as that of mating. After a few minutes of gazing at his shoulders and speculating how they’d look naked, she decided that tonight wasn’t the night after all, curse it, and that she might as well head for home.
“Well, I’d better be going now.” Her voice, she noted with disgust, reflected her disappointment.
Her comment managed to get him turned around again, however, which was nice, because Loretta found his face fascinating. She imagined it reflected a map of all the interesting places he’d been. It wasn’t a handsome face, exactly, but it was a very interesting and attractive one, full of hard planes and deep lines. And then there was that earring. That earring alone proclaimed a man who had strayed far from the beaten path stamped out by the more conformable of his masculine kin.
“You can’t go home alone,” he said flatly, as if that settled the matter.
Loretta shook her head in disgust. “For hea
ven’s sake, don’t start in with that nonsense! I can and will go home alone if I choose to do so.”
Malachai’s frown would have been more impressive if Loretta hadn’t seen it so often. “At least tell me about Jones. You can’t come here in the middle of the night, say you’ve found a man who’s been missing for four weeks, and then walk out again. Did you find the treasure along with Jones?”
“Not exactly.” Loretta decided that as long as they were going to chat some more, she might as well sit. She selected the sofa again. “I couldn’t get into the room where Mr. Jones was being held.”
Malachai took the chair opposite the sofa where Loretta resided. Their knees were so close they nearly touched, and Loretta suppressed a mad impulse to fling herself into his arms. She sighed, wishing things were otherwise.
“How do you know it’s Jones?”
She clucked disgustedly. “For heaven’s sake, what a stupid question. He told me so. I asked him.”
Malachai didn’t react to her disdain. “How do you know the treasure’s there?” Malachai asked.
“Mr. Jones told me so.”
He rubbed his cheek with one of his large hands. He hadn’t shaved for a while, Loretta noticed, his beard was coming in thick and dark, and she heard the scritch as his callused hand scraped across the short whiskers. She wondered if there would be any gray in his whiskers should he allow them to grow. He was approaching forty, after all. Didn’t men begin to go gray around forty?
She wished she knew, but the truth was that she knew precious little about men, except in the philosophical sense. For instance, she knew that men ruled the world, were carelessly cruel, and lacked any understanding about women’s worth; and she knew that she despised her brother because he was thoughtless, frivolous, and looked down upon her and her works. She forgave her father for exhibiting the same qualities, because he was from an earlier generation and set in his ways. She couldn’t find any excuses for her brother.
“So I guess Tillinghurst is the villain of the piece after all.” Malachai spoke grudgingly.
“I told you he was,” Loretta reminded him, unable to keep the satisfaction from her voice.
“I know you did. You needn’t rub it in.”
Rub it in. Oh, my, she wished she could. But he didn’t seem interested in her as a woman any longer. With a deep sigh, she reached for her cloth cap, which had become quite loose and was now sort of hanging from her hair by virtue of two hair pins that were pulling painfully at her scalp. She must have made a grimace, because Malachai, who had been staring at his feet, glanced up. She saw his gaze sharpen.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking off my hat. It’s pulling my hair out.”
She saw him swallow. “Be careful.”
She laughed softly. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt myself. I have too much hair, and it’s curly, and I guess both my hair and the hat got caught on some twigs when I was climbing up the tree.”
The memory made her shudder unexpectedly. It truly had been a scary experience. She never did get a clear look at the dogs, but she heard them snapping and growling at her heels, and her mind’s eye featured ravening beasts frothing at the mouth and with fangs as long as cavalry sabers.
“The tree,” Malachai repeated. His gaze was intense as it focused on her hair. It gave Loretta a trembly feeling in her middle.
“Wh-what are you looking at?” Her voice had gone low and slightly squeaky.
“Your hair.”
He licked his lips, giving Loretta the impression of a bear about to spring on its prey and devour it. She stopped fiddling with her hair pins, and her arms dropped to her lap. She felt her eyes open wide when Malachai lunged out of his chair and plopped himself beside her on the sofa.
“Let me do that.” His voice was hoarse. Without waiting for her consent, he reached for her hair.
Loretta winced a little, but his huge hands were gentle. Carefully, he maneuvered the hairpins out of her tangled tresses. Gently, he removed her silly cloth cap. And then, with exquisite care, he burrowed his fingers into her hair and began combing out the tangles. Her eyes drifted shut.
“Your hair . . . I like your hair.”
“Thank you.” She’d whispered, although she knew not why.
“There’s so much of it.”
“Mmm.”
“It feels like . . . like silk.”
“Mmm.”
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.”
“Mmm?”
“Touch your hair.”
“Mmm.”
“Feel your hair.”
“Mmm.”
“Kiss your hair.”
What? For the briefest instant, Loretta’s eyes popped open, but at the feel of Malachai’s lips following his fingers on her hair, they closed again. She felt herself slump against his huge, warm body, and then he held her in his arms.
Oh, yes. This is what she needed. Turning her face to his, she sought his lips with her own, found them, and decided this was going to be the night after all. Hallelujah!
She made herself stop thinking then, because she didn’t want to spoil the moment. Her body tingled with anticipation, and her heart soared, and she threw her arms around Malachai Quarles and swore she wouldn’t let go of him until he’d fulfilled his purpose in her life.
His body was like a rock. A hot rock. He was so hard. Everywhere. She explored his contours almost frantically in her quest for education and satisfaction. She’d never even wanted to do this with another man. Even at her most curious, the notion of rolling around naked with any of the other men she knew hadn’t appealed one little bit.
Malachai Quarles, however, had piqued her interest from the very beginning. Even when she was furious with him, she’d wanted him. Her hands, which had been investigating his incredibly broad shoulders, found his face.
“You’ve got a craggy face,” she murmured, pressing kisses on the lines radiating from his eyes. She felt as if she were kissing a gift from the sun.
He gasped and said, “Is that bad?”
“No,” she said. “No, it’s not bad. Your face is like a work of art. Like a sculpture shaped by the sea and the sun and the wind.”
“Huh.”
Worrying lest she get too carried away and contribute to his already enlarged ego, Loretta gave up on extolling his face. No matter how much she adored it. Anyhow, he’d covered her lips with his, so she couldn’t talk anymore if she wanted to.
When his hand covered her breast, she very nearly fainted dead away on the sofa. Recovering at once, she thrust herself at him, begging him with her body to fondle the other breast while he was at it. Fortunately, the captain, being a man of quick intelligence, understood at once. Loretta heard fabric rip and a soft curse.
“Damn it, get this thing off.”
Without waiting for her to comply, he tore the shirt right off her back. Loretta didn’t mind. All she wore beneath the shirt was a short camisole. She hadn’t bothered with her combinations this evening, since she was wearing trousers, and was clad underneath only in her camisole and a pair of short drawers. As far as she was concerned, the captain could rip them all from her body—and the sooner, the better.
In order to facilitate whatever he aimed to do with her clothing, Malachai had knelt on the floor. He pushed the rag-tag ends of her shirt back from her shoulders, lifted her camisole over her head and feasted his eyes upon her. Loretta probably would have been embarrassed if she’d been thinking. Fortunately, she wasn’t. His gaze, hot and possessive, fed something deep in her soul that had been starving for years.
“God, I’ve wanted to do this for weeks now.”
Thank heaven! What he’d wanted to do was lave her breasts with his warm tongue. Loretta hadn’t expected anything ever to feel so good. She allowed her head to drop back, and she reveled in the feel of being loved by a man—and not just any man, either. By Captain Malachai Quarles, the bane and boon of her existence, and the only man in the world for her.
“Damn, I shouldn’t be doing this,” Malachai muttered, leaving off kissing her breasts and pressing his face into them.
Loretta didn’t like the sound of that. “Yes, you should.” Curse it, why in the world had she fallen in lust with a man of honor? Any other man in the world wouldn’t have any scruples at all about ravishing a willing woman.
“No, I shouldn’t.”
The damned man would argue with her, wouldn’t he? “Yes, you should. I want you to.”
“You do?”
Loretta felt his eyebrow quirk against her bosom. “Yes. I do. If you stop now, I’ll never speak to you again.”
As soon as she heard his rough, low chuckle, she guessed she should have offered him another threat.
“Well . . . as tempting as it is never to be spoken to again by you . . .”
Loretta held her breath.
Suddenly Malachai stood up. To Loretta’s surprise, he took her with him. “To hell with it,” he said. “I’m already going to hell and I’m already going to have to marry you, so why not?”
Loretta couldn’t follow his reasoning, primarily because her body’s scream for fulfillment was way louder than her brain’s feeble attempt at thought. But, when she realized he was carrying her to the bedroom of his suite, she didn’t care. In fact, she was overjoyed.
“Oh, good!” she cried. “I’ve been longing to do this for the longest time!”
He squinted down at her. “You have?”
“Yes.” She snuggled close to him and, since he seemed to appreciate her bosom, which Loretta herself had always feared was slightly too large, she pressed her breasts against his chest. She felt his heart hammering away like a jackhammer, and she knew she’d done the right thing.
He fell upon the bed with her still in his arms, and they both bounced. Loretta, finding herself free from his embrace, took the opportunity to unbutton her trousers. They snagged on her hips when she tried to slip out of them. “Curse it,” she muttered.
“Here, allow me.” Malachai lifted her hands from the trousers.
Peering at him closely, Loretta frowned. “Are you laughing at me?” Were her hips too big? Curses!
“Never.”
Perfect Romance Page 19
