by Thea Devine
"When we make love — " he said softly, and she interposed, "Never," in a gritty voice filled with loathing and dismay. He went on, his hand still hovering at the edge of her gown, brushing the hem upwards just a bare inch at a time. "When we make love, I need only"—he gently pushed her legs apart, and before she had any notion of what he meant to do, Deuce climbed onto the bed and straddled her thighs, carefully insuring that she did not take his full weight —"make this little adjustment and" —
he braced himself on his knees—"nothing is hindered by your . . . incapacity."
"Like a horse," she muttered, refusing to look at him, refusing even to concede that he could mount her as easily as that.
"An unbroken filly," he agreed in an odd voice, shifting forward onto his hands so that she had to look into his eyes. "Now, Kalida . . ." His mouth swept down on hers unexpectedly, pressuring and then releasing her unwilling lips in a hard and demanding caress. "We'll invent all manner of new ways to accommodate you," he murmured, and he assaulted her lips again, his hand this time reaching to cup the stubborn line of her chin so that she could not pull away.
His mouth was hot and relentless; he was so strong and fierce that she had no reserves to put up against him. He plundered and he took, and she was forced to give unwillingly and she hated it. She hated him kissing her like that again, draining her will with his consuming, exquisite skill. Her hands reached up to him to protest, to beat him away; they grasped his hard muscled arms and they bit deeply into his skin as he explored every inch of her mouth. And she let him. She couldn't believe, even as it was happening, that she let him; that, as he reached for her again and again, she wanted it; that her will to oppose him was suborned to this insane sensual onslaught.
She was dizzy with it when she could finally tear her mouth away and lick her wounds; her lips were swollen with the taste of him, his own lips were hardly an inch away, and he was watching her every movement.
"There is no impediment." His voice was low and just slightly mocking. "Don't challenge me on it again."
She could feel the tension in his body as he balanced himself over her, waiting, seeing everything she could not hide. It was all in her face —the wonder of her response to
his kiss and her determination not to give in to it.
And he knew he couldn't allow her even that much time to explore her feelings because she wouldn't, or couldn't, acknowledge them. His lips touched hers lightly. "Marry me," he whispered.
"I don't want to," she said succinctly.
"That hardly matters," he answered in a flat, expressionless voice, rearing back slightly at the bluntness of her words. "All you have to do is say yes."
"What a farce," she snorted. "I am to pretend that this whole thing isn't arranged and I really have some say in the matter?"
"Oh no," he said, grasping her chin once again and eyeing her resistant lips, "all you have to do is admit"-his lips descended to her traitorous mouth —"that I can make you want me," and again he kissed her, playing with her emotions and her overwhelming desire to respond to him.
For there suddenly was a point at which she wanted solely to pull him closer instead of thrust him away, a point at which she became desperate to feel the heat and weight of his lean body, a point at which she wanted to feel his hands on her. It was so insane to her, and yet such a deprivation that he refused to do anything more than deliberately and intentionally seduce her mouth and not touch her anywhere else.
She felt like she wanted to strip away all encumbrances and reveal all secrets, and this minuscule sane self that was trying to hold on to reality kept pushing before her the notion of how well Deuce was putting his vaunted experience to good use. He was expertly ensnaring her in the trap that both he and her father had laid for her, and she was becoming, by virtue of merely succumbing to his heated kisses, his willing victim.
Somehow that notion got through to her, through the heaving haze of desire that utterly beclouded her reason.
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And yet, though he did not do more than kiss her, her whole body felt as though it had stiffened and opened for him, and that she was giving him all that he wanted.
But she couldn't, not yet, pull away from him, and she told herself it was because she wanted to fully explore the sensations he was creating within her and to see what he would do next—if he would do anything next.
And she wondered if he were feeling the same galvanic awareness as she.
But what if he weren't?
That dashing thought stopped her cold, and she pulled away from him violently.
"Kalida . . ." The caressing sound of his voice uttering her name was a mere breath between them.
"No ..." She didn't know whether she whispered the word or merely formed it with her lips, but his mouth closed over hers again, softly, caressingly, tasting her. He knew, she thought, bedazzled by this new set of tantalizing sensations; he knew exactly what he was doing to her. And exactly what more to do, for she felt his hand move next from its inflexible hold of her chin down her neck and across the flat of her chest to the swell of her breasts beneath the flimsy nightgown. And she could feel her nipples swollen against the thin material that rasped against their tautness, could feel her desire balloon as his hand came closer and closer to touching one of them.
Oh, but which?
She felt the breath of his words against her lips, hardly audible, intensely enthralling. "I want you, Kalida. Listen to your body's response, feel it, Kalida. I do that to you, no one else. No one." He delved into her mouth again as his hand slid down still further and cupped her left breast. "Say it, Kalida." Did she imagine the words? "Kalida, say it."
"No," she groaned, summoning up the last ounce of strength she had to resist him.
"Yes." He bit at the thinned line of her lips. "Kiss me, Kalida."
She shook her head mutely, knowing full well that would not discourage him. His mouth hovered just above hers, and his ever-darkening gray eyes were watchfully focused on her lips. She could barely breathe with the strain of sustaining her refusal and not letting the awareness of his hand on her body affect her.
But it was affecting her. It was impossible not to feel the stressed encompassing heat of his fingers holding her breast, impossible to ignore what it made her feel. She burned with resentment that her own body was about to betray her to him.
"Kalida!"
"No!" She had to answer the insistence in his voice.
"Yes!" His lips were right on hers as she tried to deny him, and he thrust his tongue into the recesses of her mouth again with an unabated hunger that.was stunning to her and breached her defenses.
He knew it. "I'm showing you," he murmured against her lips, "over and over how much I want you."
"I don't see that," she whispered, but she saw it all too well.
"You feel it," he contradicted in the softest of all-knowing voices, and almost as if to put the final burden of proof on her, he shifted his position slightly to free his left hand to surround her right breast with that same electric warmth.
He could just see her face in the dim lamplight that the bulk of his body was now blocking, and it reflected shock first, then a kind of hectic strain as if within herself her feelings were warring.
"Deuce—" Her voice was hoarse, a mere pleading croak.
"Your body says yes," he answered her, and her hands flew to his wrists as she sensed him about to move, about
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to shatter her sensibilities with just one flick of one finger.
"Don't — " Pure begging now; she did not want to feel what she knew he could make her feel. "Not like this, not-"
"Yes." His voice was so low and adamant. "Yes, Kalida, because you'll know only I can make you feel this way; and that's what I want—that's all that I want. . . ." Now his mouth firmed into that inflexible line she despised, and her whole body arched forward instead of caving in at what she knew was coming; it was almost as if, in spite of her protestations, she wa
nted it, and a part of her was standing, disembodied, watching in fascination as his hands cupped the weight of each breast and then moved very slowly forward, and still forward until just the thumb and forefinger of each hand was touching each taut, protruding fabric-covered tip.
And then, firmly and gently, he squeezed each rigid nipple and watched her response with great satisfaction. A cascade of pure pleasure rioted through her veins, reflected in her eyes and in the great huge moan he captured in his mouth and felt right through to the core of his body.
She couldn't believe the incandescent sensations that pulsated through her whole body by just his contracting his fingers in that way. She felt weightless and liquid as he kept up the pressure of both his fingers and his mouth on hers, urgent and gentle all at once, and then his voice, moving the words against her passion-swollen lips, "Now, Kalida," punctuated again and again with the ruthless captivation of her lips that underscored what he was doing with his hands. "Now tell me," once more against her lips, and she couldn't deny it when her body was so blatantly demanding his caresses.
"I feel it," she whispered, wholly under his spell, her body writhing at just the thought of how he was touching her.
"From me," he rasped, holding her now without moving.
She pulled in her breath as her imagination supplied the sense of the movement. He held her hostage in that suspended moment. "From you," she whispered shakily.
"You will marry me."
A husky statement. She could give in, and she would have all she desired. And yet . . . She hesitated. "I — "
"For this." He knew just when to apply pressure. "Say yes."
"Deuce-"
"Your legs don't matter, Kalida." His voice was rough with frustration at her refusal to agree. "This matters." His fingers tightened still again. "And this matters." His mouth covered hers and his tongue thrust against hers demandingly; she met it with an equal urgency of her own that was compounded by the sense of the taste of him and the insane pleasure she felt from his expert manipulation of her nipples.
Expert . . . She just had time to think before his harsh voice was demanding a reply from her again. "Kalida ..." And there was a faint warning tone now; even as it caressed her name, it spoke of patience dwindling, of her last chance to capitulate willingly, to have all he was promising her.
Did she want it? If she really had no choice about it?
And as if he felt her indecision, he moved his thumb against each taut peak simultaneously, pushing each, pressing, playing, driving her to the brink of . . . what?
"This matters," he repeated hoarsely. "You want this, Kalida, and you want me, Nothing else, and no one else."
God, she should be fighting him, she thought dimly, and instead she was in thrall with his words and his devastating hands. He had no right to do this to her, to make her mindless and awash in such sensations that her
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reason became a dull haze of pleasure; she could never win against this, not this kind of assault, this overwhelming otherness in her she had never known existed.
Oh, but she had to keep trying. She could not give in to him because her body was weak and her sanity was willing to surrender to her body's betrayal.
No. And no.
"Kalida," he growled, surrendering her breasts suddenly and moving his hands down her body to her hips. She felt him pulling her downward as easily as if she had been a rag doll, and it was then she began to fight him, using her hands, twisting her body. Forgetting her legs were supposed to be immobile, she almost raised her knees to savage him in the place he would feel it most. But he was too fast, too strong for her. He grabbed her hands first, pulling them up over her head, and he maneuvered his body down on hers ruthlessly, using his long muscular legs to cover and imprison hers, his body and his mouth to subdue her totally. He had no caution now as to how she bore his weight; he pressed himself against her as if he wanted to imprint himself on her body, to make her feel him, the length of him, the rock hard maleness of him, in this ageless primitive way. To conquer her, with his immovable masculinity and with the dominance of his ravaging tongue.
Her protesting body arched against his, and his huge, hot right hand grasped it and ruthlessly pulled her tighter against him, cupping her buttocks and moving harshly up the line of her back to feel the curve of her outthrust breast and finally to surround her neck and jaw, feeling in all of his exploration the movement of her body, the response, the intensity of her protest and her obstinate surrender.
And it was unbearable to her, how he could overpower her and ravish her senses so that she lost all control. If anything, she hated him the more for it, for how he was
making her submit to him, making her body demand his hands on it, feeling it, learning it in a way that should have been repulsive to her. But it wasn't. And she had to guard against that. She had to.
It was impossible without her legs, without being able to flee from him, literally and figuratively. Everything within her reached for the sensations he evoked. If only she could just.»lay still and command her treacherous mouth and body to lay quiescent. If only he hadn't touched her breasts in that way that made her long for more. If only he weren't so strong and so damned determined.
He felt the change in her. It was like she had been doused with cold water. Her heat evaporated and her body calmed under his hands, not seeking anymore, not participating.
He pulled away from her avid mouth to gaze into her glazed, half-closed eyes. Her lips were bruised and swollen from his onslaught, and her body still curved toward him, the gown wrinkled and hiked up around her hips, her breasts still taut with desire and invitation.
His own eyes reflected that passion and appeal, she perceived. She affected him, and she felt a curious little wave of both triumph and denial. She did not want him to have feelings for her in any way. And yet, if she were bound to him, as he and her father were so determined she would be, it would be so much easier for her if . . .
But she wouldn't think that far.
"Beautiful Kalida," he whispered suddenly, moving his thumb over her raw lips with a kind of tender possessive-ness.
Her lids flickered at his touch, his fingers were magic, she thought abstractedly, and then she was aware that he had lifted himself from her body and stood looking down at her with a deep sense of satisfaction reflected in his face.
She was like a pagan princess lying there, her hair in wild animal disarray, her gown exposing the line of her long bare legs, her breasts outlined fully and tightly against the crumpled nightgown. She had to throw her head back to look at him, and her expression had turned into hard, unremitting loathing that curiously enhanced her bruised lips and the glittering navy of her resentful eyes. "Leaving now?" she demanded throatily, filled with that insane disappointment at the removal of his hands and body from hers. God, she only wanted to challenge him. Why was she so angry?
"You've had enough . . . tonight," he said with a touch of amusement. He moved to the door. "Sweet dreams, Kalida. Only think what awaits you in our marriage bed." He opened the door and turned to look at her taut face.
"If that was a sample, it doesn't bear thinking about," she tossed back insolently to protect herself.
His reaction was instant and violent. She smiled in rueful satisfaction at the earsplitting sound of the door crashing shut behind him.
Chapter Four
Naive fool, she castigated herself endlessly through the long, sleepless night. Stupid fool to think she could will away the disastrous effect of her body's memory of his hands on her. Crazy fool to have denied it to his face.
She would never learn. She had provoked him the way she had ever since she had known him, at first in her childlike ways, by ruining dinner, say, if her father had invited him, or by chasing off his stallion so he had to walk home; or by snubbing him when he spoke to her, or by running away. By taking back Malca, and by paying him for him, penny by penny, over the course of two years; or by refusing to be civil to him
on social occasions with the neighbors. Oh, she'd been a spiteful little witch, and that same hostility festered in her treatment of him to this day.
And so why, she wondered, as she stared dismally out the window, did he keep insisting he wanted to marry her? He must have a purpose. There was some other reason underpinning his proposal, something other than Papa's desire to buy into Sweetland. There had to be, otherwise
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nothing made sense. She was as sure of that as she was sure she was stuck in her narrow bed and walls-closing-in room until such time as she decided to put paid to her little scheme and confess the truth. Which she was sure Deuce knew anyway.
Damn it. Papa still believed her. He had no reason not to; everything would work out to his satisfaction since Deuce saw no detriment to their union. And, if she were truly pragmatic as indeed her papa was, she would have to admit he was right: There was nothing objectionable in her marrying Deuce Cavender. Another woman might envy her. And Deuce himself had taught her, to her great regret, how easily she could be made to desire the very thing she disdained.
He was due, in fact, this afternoon, Papa had already announced. So, in spite of her protestations and provocations, he would come and he would press his seduction further.
It was a little like being lifted into a tornado: He overtook her, stormed her defenses, and made her, in spite of her own will and desire, totally his.
The very thought made her nipples peak, and she groaned. Relentless, that was what he was. How could she begin to know such a man when she had despised him for this very trait for as long as she had known him?
And yet, his hands ... his knowing, skillful hands. Hands that had caressed many women and knew just how to touch her. She hated being at the mercy of those hands and that unyielding male domination. And she hated herself for concocting a scheme that would keep her just within their reach.
