Dangerous Attraction

by Melinda Cross

‘That was…hic!…magnificent…hic!’ Her attempt to communicate dissolved into a fractured giggle.

  His features sagged in disbelief. ‘You’re crazy,’ he mumbled.

  She grinned at him fiercely and whispered, ‘I never had such a time. I never had so much fun…hic!’

  ‘Rebecca…’ he started to say, but she was already free of her seatbelt, clambering out of the car, as giddy as a schoolgirl as she dashed out into the snowfall.

  ‘Come on, Marcus! Come out!’ she shouted, holding her arms wide to embrace the miracle, lifting her face to taste it. She raced around to his side of the car, skidding and slipping on her thin-soled flats, laughing when she nearly fell, bending to peer in at him like a mischievous elf. ‘Come out and play,’ she insisted through the glass, her face wet with melting flakes, shining with unmitigated joy. She rapped her knuckles on the glass. ‘Hurry up…hic!’

  A slow smile, an almost forgotten smile, spread across Marcus’s face as he unsnapped his seatbelt and opened the door, but Rebecca never saw it. Impatience had already spun her around and sent her racing across the iced meadow grass toward the river, oblivious to the cold wetness seeping through her shoes, the deepening snow that chilled her bare ankles.

  ‘Rebecca!’ he called after her. ‘Wait! You need to change into boots and slacks! You need to…’ His futile commands trailed away when he realized she was already too far away to hear. He stood there for a moment, smiling in amazed exasperation, then tugged up the collar of his coat and ran across the field after her.

  Rebecca heard Marcus’s steps pounding closer and closer behind her, but it wasn’t Marcus Flint chasing her; it was the playmate of a childhood that had somehow slipped by her. She giggled, nearly choked on a hiccup, and ran faster.

  ‘Rebecca! Look!’

  Something new in his voice—was it mischief? Was Marcus Flint capable of such a feeling?—stopped her in her tracks. She pirouetted perfectly on the slick snow and looked back expectantly, then squealed in surprise when a snowball splattered harmlessly against the front of the heavy coat. She stared down at the ragged white circle on the black cashmere, stunned, then raised her head slowly to gape at his black shape looming a few yards away in the darkness. While she watched, he skittered a little closer, then bent to scoop up another missile.

  My God, she thought numbly, Marcus Flint is throwing snowballs at me. And I thought just the snow was a miracle.

  She remained stock-still with amazement until the second snowball hit her shoulder, then she was laughing out loud, scrambling sideways, scooping up snow of her own, packing it inexpertly, sending one lopsided ball after another sailing harmlessly in his direction. After several shortfalls, she finally managed to land one directly on his chest, and heard the sharp woof of his surprised exhalation.

  She caught her breath and watched with wide eyes as he straightened slowly to his full height. Although she couldn’t make out his features in the dark, she could sense his gaze traveling across the snow toward her.

  She waited, breathless, snowflakes wetting her hair and falling like kisses on her lashes and the tip of her nose. When he finally spoke, his voice rumbled through her body like a freight train. ‘You’re going to pay for that one,’ he growled ominously, and leaped toward her.

  She squeaked and dashed away, made it three full strides before her feet slid from under her and she collapsed to slide on her stomach like an otter. Laughing helplessly, she rolled on to her back to get up, coat splaying open like black wings on the snow, but Marcus was already on top of her, his arms braced on either side. ‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ he laughed down at her.

  Still giggling, Rebecca pushed impotent fists against his chest, squirming beneath him, finally surrendering with an exhausted sigh as she smiled up at him. And then something in her chest caught and tightened, freezing the smile on her lips.

  My God, she thought, as mesmerized by the face above her as she had been by the snow, I wonder if anyone ever saw Marcus Flint look the way he looks right now?

  Even in the shadows of the night she could see the smooth brow beneath the wet dangles of his dark hair, the crisply drawn mouth softened now by an uninhibited smile, the gray eyes alight with mischief. A boy seemed to be peering out from behind those eyes, and then, as she watched, the man pushed the boy aside.

  ‘Do you give up?’ he demanded, but there was a break in his voice, as if he’d realized the demand belonged to a childish game they weren’t playing any more.

  She blinked at snowflakes brushing her lashes. ‘Oh, Marcus,’ she whispered. ‘I gave up a long time ago. You know that.’

  A sharp crease etched between his brows, as if her words had brought him suddenly back to a reality he didn’t particularly like. He started to push himself away.

  Rebecca felt something wonderfully alive seeping out of her; felt the familiar, smothering weight of helplessness bearing down on her once again. In the next instant her mind soared, leaping that mental chasm that separated quiet resignation from determined rebellion, and she did the bravest thing she had ever done in her life.

  She lifted her arms and reached for what she wanted and then she hung on.

  Marcus’s arms quivered under the sudden, surprising pressure of her hands gripping his shoulders, and his body went rigid. ‘Becca…’ he warned her, but she only trembled at the shortened name that sounded like an endearment, and pulled down harder.

  ‘Becca, be careful…’

  But her hands and arms were insistent, stronger than his will. He collapsed to his elbows with a soft groan, his hands burrowing under her head to cradle it awayfrom the cold snow, his brows furrowed hard with the effort of whatever struggle was taking place behind them. ‘Becca, Becca.’ His breath swept over her face, making her eyes flutter, her pulse race, and then she felt the partial weight of his chest as he eased down, felt the thunder of his heart on her fists between them.

  She looked up at him and waited with heartbreaking innocence, the trust of a child shining in her eyes. When he tipped his head slightly to one side, exposing her face to the sky, snowflakes drifted down on to her mouth, decorating her lips. Unconsciously, her eyes fixed on his, she licked at them. And then he did.

  The shudder began at her mouth and coursed through her body into his, electrifying him. Trembling with the effort of restraint, his tongue chased snowflakes around her mouth, her nose, across her eyelids, down the side of her neck to the warm hollow beneath her chin. Straining against him, whimpering unconsciously, Rebecca struggled to free her hands from between them, feeling like a wire stretched taut, vibrating with deafening, silent music, threatening to snap.

  At last her hands were freed, and she released a sharp exhalation when his chest bore down on breasts that had swelled and hardened as if to support him. There was a flash of cold as he lifted himself on one elbow to tear at her coat with his hand, a startling moment when he jerked at the closure of her dress and dozens of buttons went flying into the snow, and then suddenly her bra was tugged sharply downward, completely exposing her left breast. Rebecca felt the moist patter of snow on the swollen tissue for only an instant, and then there was heat, incredible heat, as his mouth closed over her breast and his tongue lashed at her nipple.

  Something halfway between pleasure and pain tugged fiercely at the inside of her belly, making her want to curl up and hold that feeling in the curve of her body forever. Her knees bent as his legs moved between hers, and she rounded her back, cupping her hips to contain him. Somehow he managed to jerk his coat from between them, and she felt, for the very first time, the rock-hard insistence of a man’s body demanding entrance.

  She cried out softly at the pressure, instinctively arching her back, then rounding it again, rocking with him in the perfect rhythm of two bodies driven to become one.

  A low sound rumbled up from his throat as his mouth released her breast and moved up to her lips, lingering there for the hot, wet space of a heartbeat before he jerked his head to tear the glove from his hand with his
teeth. His fingers burned their imprint into her skin as he reached beneath her dress to clasp her thigh…and then he went still.

  ‘God, what the hell are we doing? You’re freezing to death.’

  She shook her head frantically, making a wild-haired angel in the snow as he strained to pull away. But she must have been every bit as cold as he said, because her fingers slipped numbly from his shoulders. In the next moment he was kneeling over her with a distressed expression, lifting the lacy cup of her bra over her breast with touching solicitude.

  ‘I’m not cold,’ she tried to tell him, but he shushed her with a scowl, quickly closed her dress and her coat, then scooped her up in powerful arms that cradled her tightly against his chest.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Marcus, let me walk at least,’ she protested, but when she tried to wriggle free he jerked her against him hard.

  ‘You’re soaking wet, you’re cold, and your shoes are filled with snow. Now shut up and be still.’

  Rebecca started to protest, then stopped wondering why on earth she would want to. She relaxed a little in the cradle of his arms as he began to stride back across the field toward the house. ‘Your shoes are probably filled with snow, too,’ she said with half-hearted petulance.

  He glanced down at her briefly. That’s right, they are. Do you want to carry me?’

  She suppressed a smile and leaned her head against his chest, listening to the steady, robust beat of his heart against her ear.

  Once, halfway to the house, he bent his head and she felt the heat of his breath on her wet hair. She closed her eyes briefly and held the gesture close to her heart, cherishing it.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she whispered when she felt the presence of the large house looming just ahead.

  There was utter silence the moment he obeyed, and as Rebecca gazed at the wonderland of white around them she marveled that such a magical transformation could occur without a sound.

  ‘What is it?’ Marcus whispered down at her.

  She tipped her head back and looked up. The light from the porch illuminated the moisture that glistened on her face. ‘Look at it, Marcus,’ she whispered, gazing at the tiny, delicately formed flakes of white drifting down from a black sky. ‘Did you ever see anything so beautiful?’

  She felt his body weight shift as he lifted his face toward the sky and closed his eyes.

  ‘No,’ he murmured. ‘Never.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  MARCUS mounted the porch steps and somehow managed to open the front door without disturbing Rebecca’s position in his arms. He tapped the door with his heel and it closed softly behind them.

  The dark vastness of the great foyer receded a bit when he nudged a switch with his shoulder and cones of yellow light rose from a dozen wall-sconces.

  ‘Are you ever going to put me down?’ Rebecca asked playfully as he carried her through the central hallway toward the kitchen.

  ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

  She sighed, utterly content to ride the rhythm of his step as he strode down the hall past the office, past other doors she had never entered, then veered left. He stopped before a set of double doors opposite the entrance to the kitchen.

  ‘What’s in here?’

  He bent his knees to turn the doorknobs without putting her down, pushing them open with his foot. ‘My room.’

  As he carried her into the darkness, she breathed in cooler, moister air, subtly scented with an elusive fragrance that tickled a deep memory. She frowned, trying to place it as he eased her down on to a firm settee of some sort, and then her brow finally cleared.

  ‘Forest,’ she murmured as his hands slipped from beneath her. ‘It smells like a forest.’

  His head lingered near hers for a moment before he straightened, and she felt a susurration of agreement against her ear.

  He moved away from her then, but she could sense his presence a few feet away. Small sounds crackled near the floor, and then a match flared with a noisy scratch and the brief odor of sulfur. Fire blossomed around the outline of his body as he sat on his haunches before the largest fieldstone fireplace Rebecca had ever seen.

  Silhouetted by flames, looking as if he’d sprung from them, the squatting figure exuded a primitive power, with his forearms draped across his thighs, his topcoat spread out behind him like a cape. Rebecca felt her heart thump a double beat in her chest, an ancient response to an ancient call.

  He watched in silence for a time as the fire bloomed, then rose slowly and turned to look down at her. She couldn’t see his features, only a darker shadow where his eyes would be.

  ‘Sit up,’ he said quietly, moving toward her.

  When she did, he knelt before her and eased the sodden cashmere coat off her shoulders, down her arms to her wrists. She lifted her hands free of the sleeves and felt immediately weightless—and then was weightless, for a moment, when he lifted the backs of her knees and pulled the coat from beneath her.

  Reflections from the fire danced on her face as she reached timidly to touch his hair. ‘Wet,’ she murmured, pulling her hand back as if she’d taken too great a liberty.

  ‘Not as wet as you, or as cold.’ He pulled off her dripping shoes and placed her bare feet on his thighs, covering them with his hands to warm them. The heat from his legs rose through the soles of her feet, making them tingle. She wriggled her toes against him to dispel the pins-and-needles sensation, and heard him chuckle low in his throat.

  ‘Just sit here for a minute. I’ll be right back.’

  He disappeared into the darkness of the room behind her, and although she wanted to follow him with her eyes she was suddenly too wonderfully, lazily lethargic even to turn her head. She stared hypnotically at the erratic dance of the flames in the fireplace, waiting for him magically to appear in her line of sight again.

  And what would happen when he did? she wondered, her eyes falling closed as her body remembered and relived the sensations of lying beneath him outside in the snow.

  Unconsciously, she leaned back and stretched her arms across the back of the settee, lifting her breasts beneath the dampness of her thin dress. The warmth of the fire glowed on the exposed skin of her neck and chest, reminding her that the dress gaped open where the buttons had once held it closed. She dropped her hands to her sides immediately, flushed with the memory of what had happened to those buttons. Clutching the dress closed at her neck, she shivered at the clammy touch of the damp fabric against her hot skin.

  ‘Don’t do that.’ He was behind her suddenly, his hands gentle on her shoulders, pulling her back. His fingers unclasped hers from the closure of her dress, and pulled it to either side as his head bent close to hers. ‘Let the fire warm you while I dry your hair.’

  She stiffened, then relaxed as he rubbed gently at her head with a towel that smelled like summer.

  ‘Are your feet warm yet?’ he murmured, moving the towel down the sides of her neck.

  ‘Um-hmm.’ Her head was tipped cooperatively to one side, and the reds and yellows of the fire leaped on the insides of her closed eyelids. She felt a drop of moisture on the back of her left hand, and knew it had fallen from his own hair as he leaned over, ministering to her.

  ‘Good.’ He straightened behind her, leaving the towel draped over her shoulders. ‘Now take off your clothes. All of them.’

  Rebecca’s heart thumped in an extra beat, and her eyes opened slowly to stare into the flames. Yes, she thought. It’s every bit as simple as that. You spend your whole life waiting for a moment like this, for a love like this that turns your heart inside out in abject surrender, and in the fantasy you’ve cherished for so long the man you love doesn’t demand that you undress—he slips the clothes from your body tenderly, piece by piece, drawing the seconds out into years.

  But Marcus Flint was a more demanding man than that—a more commanding man. It seemed commensurate with the strength of his character that he would insist that the heart’s gift of the body be offered voluntarily, or it would be no gift
at all.

  ‘All right,’ she answered quietly, rising to her feet, still staring at the fire. She imagined his eyes on her back as her fingers moved with surprising quickness to release several additional buttons. When the opening of the dress gaped at her waist, she shrugged her shoulders and let the damp fabric slip down her arms, then over her hips to crumple into a sand-colored pile at her feet.

  Something told her to stop for a moment, and she stood there while the firelight warmed her skin and turned it gold, her chin lifted proudly, her blue gaze serene.

  What does he see? she wondered briefly, and the thought made her smile a little. What no man has ever seen, she answered herself, her fingers pulling the elastic top of her half-slip away from her waist, letting it fall to join her dress on the floor.

  There was an instant of embarrassment as she stood in only her bra and panties before the fire, as if these brief garments somehow sullied the gift she was prepared to offer for the first time. She unclasped her bra and shivered when her breasts fell free, then quickly slipped down the silky strip of her bikini pants and kicked them away.

  Her breasts bobbled with a hitched breath as she straightened her spine and closed her eyes, waiting. ‘I’m finished,’ she said softly, unnecessarily, feeling the heat of his gaze on her bare back and buttocks as strongly as she felt the warmth of the fire on her front.

  ‘Does the robe fit?’

  Rebecca’s eyes flew open in disbelief. His voice had come from what seemed like a great distance, far to the other side of the room she had yet to see, muffled a bit, as if he wasn’t in the room at all any more. She spun on her bare feet, completely forgetting her nakedness, her pupils opening wide at the darkness.

  A rectangular slab of dim light washed out from a distant doorway—an adjoining bathroom, she realized, seeing the edge of a sink and a piece of tiled floor. A shadow cut through the light as Marcus moved inside the bathroom, and she heard the gentle splash of water in the sink.

  ‘Oh, my God.’ The words were barely a breath leaving her mouth. Her eyes darted frantically, settled with resounding finality on the black terry-cloth robe draped over the arm of the settee. ‘Oh, my God,’ she repeated, her entire body flaming hot with the frantic rush of blood that suffused her skin.