by Thea Devine
His eyes explored the lush lines of her exposed upper torso as she sat indignantly waiting him out, her breasts heaving and her eyes blazing deep navy-blue. Or did they close slightly as his eyes rested on the peaked nipples that thrust out from the wet gown as though she were totally naked? She reacted, he sensed that, and she would not move. She had won the round; instinct had not made her lift herself up and out of peril; at this point, his growing desire was more a peril than anything else and even the chill that coursed through his body was no drawback to that.
With a brisk motion he hoisted her protestingly into his arms and stalked back up to the house, carrying her like some primitive man who has seized his woman at the moment and meant to make the most of it.
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He pushed his way into the partially closed door, fully expecting to be waylaid by a wrathful father, but the house was suspiciously empty. Good, he thought grimly, bearing Kalida into her bedroom and shoving the door closed behind him with his foot.
He looked into Kalida's flushed face. "Back to the beginning of the story, Kalida."
"There is no beginning of this story," she shot back, wriggling in his tenacious grasp.
"Stubborn witch," he growled, and dumped her again on the bed. "Take off your nightgown."
She struggled with the remnants of her self-control. "I know enough to do that, if you'd only just remove your obnoxious presence."
He sent her a sardonic glance and then calmly began removing his shirt.
"Deuce, damn it — "
"I'm soaked through too," he pointed out reasonably as he discarded the shirt and began unbuckling his belt.
"I'll scream," Kalida threatened, scrabbling for her cover, rather unnerved by the sight of his massively broad, matted chest. He reached for the blanket first and pulled it well out of her reach.
Still leaning over the foot of the bed, he said calmly, "Your papa would just love to catch me in here with you like this. It kind of removes all the constraints, don't you think? Naturally, I'd be a gentleman about the whole thing. But you can be sure everyone would know about it. So, don't threaten me, Kalida, and just take off your gown."
"What are you going to do?" she demanded, rather dismayed by the scenario he had just outlined.
The look in his eyes almost sent her over the edge; they said, You remember what I can do. But all he said was, "Warm you up." And she shivered at all that those three little words implied.
He whipped his belt off his narrow hips and draped it over the footboard, and then stood looking at her. His muscles rippled as he moved his arms, and he filled her dazed eyes and senses with his sensuality. And she couldn't run away from him; she couldn't allow herself to move.
He moved, and she felt as irrevocably stalked as if she were his prey as he came to the side of the bed and bent over her. She was assaulted by the heat of his body and the alluring animal scent of' his nakedness. He was so inescapably male, and she reacted to the menace in him. "You're trembling," he murmured. "Cold —or scared?"
"Of you?" she scoffed, forcing herself to look right into his eyes, to be enveloped by the smoking desire that burned there.
"I wonder what you're planning to do now?" he said conversationally as his weight depressed the side of the bed.
"Your scare tactics are not working," Kalida snapped.
But he completely ignored that and put out a hand to touch her. "I hope you have towels," he said, moving his hand from the damply curling hair around her hectically flushed cheeks to her neck. "Where do you keep them?"
She sent him a rebellious glare. He immediately made for the washstand where, in one of the narrow drawers, he found a length of rough cotton toweling that he draped around his neck.
"Now," he said suddenly, and the crackling sound of the word was like a gunshot. He came to the bed in two strides, his hand reaching for the front of her gown, her own hands immediately coming up to push at his. The force of both opposing strengths instantly tore her gown down the front like thin paper.
He pulled at the flimsy material and it peeled away from her body like wet wallpaper; her back stiffened up and she sat there regally, resentful and naked, with the
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long sleeves of her gown sliding provocatively off her shoulders.
He smiled sourly, sat down at the foot of the bed, and began briskly rubbing her legs with the towel, working it upward and still further upward, coming closer and closer to her femininity with his hot hands and sensual movements.
"Your muscles are tense," he commented in an almost natural voice, but it was betrayed by a faint ragged edge to it. His hands encircled and stroked her nerveless limbs, coming closer and closer to the heart of her desire.
"Nonsense," she denied briskly, but her voice was throaty with the sense of what he was doing to her. She could not, this time, meet his glowing gaze. Her eyes focused instead on his hands, on her stiff legs, on her billowing breasts that seemed to thrust out at him of their own volition and peak tighter and tighter with every movement he made.
"You're warmer now." He draped the towel across her thighs and pulled her against him to slide the sleeves of her torn gown down from her shoulders. The taut tips of her breasts grazed the rough, matted hair on his chest, and a chord sounded deep within her as he shoved the remnants of her nightgown onto the floor and just held her against him with her nipples just barely touching him.
It was a gorgeously erotic moment. She was aware as she never had been in her life of her breasts and the power of their enticement, of his hard masculinity reaching out to her—no, demanding her. Of her nakedness and her desire. Of passion just below the surface, just waiting for the moment, the man.
But not him, everything in her screamed, even as she felt a deep yearning to feel his body wholly against hers once again.
And almost as if he had divined her desire, he shifted her body slightly and she found herself on his lap, her
bottom pressed hard against his towering manhood, her breasts crushed tightly against his bare chest, his rock solid arms enfolding her in such a way that she could not pull free. "You're deliciously warm now, Kalida. No, don't move. Don't talk. I don't care what your game is, I want you here just like this —naked and warm in my arms. And willing, Kalida . . ."
"You'll have ito sedate me to make me willing," she muttered derisively, unsettled by the sense of his throbbing manhood like a bar of iron beneath her, his surety and monumentally strong arms around her.
"Will I?" he countered lazily, and she felt his hand gently stroke the side of her right breast, running his fingers vertically across its contour, stopping just screamingly short of caressing the nipple. She felt her whole body, independent of her will, arch up to demand that he feel that taut, rigid peak. His fingers responded by just lightly moving in a sensuously circular motion, close and closer still, but not there, and her body writhed in a mute plea. "Will I?" he whispered, mocking her words as her own body made the demand her mouth would not. He moved his magical hand away from her breast to explore the soft curve of her hip and thigh. His mouth touched hers lightly, just the barest breath of a touch. "Willing now?" His words fanned her lips.
"No," she whispered, her fingers digging into the hot skin of his muscular shoulders.
"Liar." He licked her lips, savoring their softness. "Listen to your body, Kalida. Your body doesn't lie."
"My body tells the worst lies," she whispered, turning her head to avoid his seductive mouth. His tongue touched her ear and she shivered at the sensation.
"I will have you." He pulled her closer, his hand sliding from the lush curve of her hip to cup her buttocks. "Willingly." His fingers contracted involuntarily against their undulating softness.
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"Never," she swore.
"Forever," he corrected, his lips hovering above her mouth, his eyes smouldering as he concentrated on the movement of her lips that were now parted and waiting, belying all her denials. "You want me now," he added huskily.
"I do not want you," she bit out, pushing at him vainly with her free hand.
That faint sour smile played across his lips again. "Stubborn, stubborn Kalida," he muttered, and his mouth slanted over hers and took it ruthlessly this time, as if he meant to show her that her only choice was to comply with his will and that she had none of her own.
The hand that held her buttocks moved and ripped away the towel that covered the juncture of her thighs, and he began to caress the soft skin there, brazenly stroking, demanding admittance, commanding her compliance.
The soft sensual movements of his fingers compelled her legs to part, and she moved them without thinking to admit his questing hand. He stroked her gently, learning her, feeling her reactions and responses, in no hurry, either with his fingers or his mouth, and she moved against him voluptuously as he found her pleasure point and began his sensual massage.
The sensations he evoked were indescribable to her. She felt as though she could not get enough of his hand within her. Her whole body swelled toward him, demanding and giving at the same time. .
He pulled his mouth away from hers to watch her face, loving the little animal sounds she made, whispering in her ear, "You want me now," and hearing her still deny him.
"No, no, I want . . . this. ... I want — "
"Me," he rasped as her response heightened, and her body arched and moved frantically beneath his hand.
"I want . . . that," she sighed, feeling for one frenzied moment she had to escape his inexorable fingers and the unknown they impelled her toward.
"From me," he whispered savagely, his mouth claiming hers, knowing she was on the edge of hurtling away from him; his lips ravaged her tongue, her lips, her neck. "Only from me," he repeated harshly, and then his mouth closed over her tempting taut, straining left nipple, covering it, licking at it, sucking it in rhythm with her groans until her senses spun shatteringly out of control into a glittering convulsion of pure primordial pleasure.
Her body felt as if it had dissolved as his mouth and hands ceased their commanding pressure, and she moved closer to his heat, feeling melded to it and enveloped by it. His whole body was taut with a fine tension that came from both his response to her and from his own need. She felt that too and she did not know what to do or say to alleviate it.
"Kalida." His abrasive whisper penetrated her thick contentment. "Look at me, Kalida." The raw emotion in his voice flayed her, and her eyes flew open. "I want you, Kalida." Her head moved in a faint denial. She didn't want him to want her. She didn't. "Kalida!" His voice commanded now and she could not ignore it. His seductive hand rested lightly on her feminine mound but its very tautness communicated his suppressed desire. "Hold me, Kalida."
Her head reared up and her lashes lowered to shield her eyes. Her left hand, which had been clutching at his forearm, tentatively moved upward. Her other arm wound itself around his waist, and she felt as though some other self were moving her limbs. The flaring light in his eyes held hers hypnotically, and he was aware of every hesitant move of her hands. "Feel me, Kalida," he whispered as her fingers slid lightly over the corded muscle of his upper arm.
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"Kalida!" There was a warning note in his tone. Her fingers tightened against his skin. "Yes," he murmured, "just like that."
"No," she demurred, arresting the movement of her hand.
"Yes," he said insistently, "from you, Kalida." He took her hand forcefully and placed it around his neck. "Like that. Hold me, Kalida." Her arm tightened and she became intensely aware of the shape of his body against hers, the sense of his burning need. His mouth touched hers, his tongue tracing the shape of her lips, tasting them, feeling them on his own.
"Deuce," she groaned, "I can't take any more. You don't want me, you can't. You just want any woman. Nothing is any different now than it ever has been."
"Everything is different," he growled, pulling the arm that encircled his neck downward across his chest and his taut male nipples that were so like and unlike her own. And downward still, to rest on the pulsating manhood that strained against his trousers. His hand covered hers, and then briskly unfastened the waistband beneath her fingers, releasing his hot, hard elongated maleness to nudge her hand.
She shuddered, and the moment stretched into a heavy war of wills between them, quivering in the air until he commanded huskily, "Touch me, Kalida."
"I can't," she protested. "I never—"
"I know. I know. Touch me, Kalida. I want your hand there—now." He watched intently as her tongue licked her lips; her hand made an unsure jerking motion and stopped abruptly. His hand grasped it uncompromisingly and settled her reluctant fingers around the proof of his desire.
She couldn't move. How incredible. And impossible. She felt desperate to get away from him, but he still held her in that inexorable grasp and her fingers were still
wrapped around the heat of his rock hard masculinity.
"Kalida." His harsh voice came from far away, but she could not ignore it. "Tell me now what you're not going to do, Kalida."
She caught her breath, her eyes widening in shock at his rough words. He had shattered the mad moment between them, and she found it easy after that to remove her hand from his slowly contracting manhood, easy to withdraw from him, to summon up her resentment, which was always near the surface anyway. "I'll tell you," she bit out, using every ounce of strength to jack herself away from him. "I'm never going to be caught by you like this again. Never. And that's a promise."
"Don't count on keeping it," he said acidly, running his free hand insolently over her nakedness.
She froze under his touch just as an ominous pounding began on the door.
Deuce released her instantly, and she fell" back against the pillows. He lifted himself off the bed as he smoothly fastened his trousers and threw her blanket at her. He did not look at her as he went to the door and admitted Ellie Dean.
"What on earth is going on in here?" she demanded, her eyes sliding to Kalida, who had muffled herself in her thin cover up to her chin, which did not hide at all the tempting curves of her body.
Ellie swung her gaze back to Deuce, her eyes kindling at the sight of his broad bare chest and the line of his body as he leaned sideways to grab his shirt. His expression, as he slid his muscular arms into the sleeves, was mocking.
"None of your business, Ellie." He buttoned his shirt as he moved toward her, and she began backing away from him, overwhelmed by the power in him, and the disdain.
He slammed the door in Ellie Dean's face almost as though he didn't even see her. She did not like that all,
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not one bit, and she didn't care what Hal Ryland had told her about the reasons for it.
But a moment later, Deuce flung open the door and stalked out. Kalida's face, behind him, held a curious expression of relief mingled with yearning.
Ellie closed the door on her, her own relief palpable and distressingly evident to her.
Chapter Five
An eerie semblance of normalcy pervaded the house that night due, Kalida thought wrathfully, to Ellie Dean's presence, her motherly and solicitous aid, and her father's subtle approbation. Ellie and her father were clearly allied, and the sense was that they were a family; Kalida was leery of it while she could see that Ellie Jiked the notion very well.
It also annoyed her that her father never questioned Deuce's presence in her room. Quite the contrary, he went out of his way to assure her that he trusted Deuce implicitly and that he knew he would never do anything to harm Kalida.
"Oh, Papa," she said disgustedly as she picked at her dinner and they discussed the events of the afternoon. "Tell me how it comes about that you just happened to be up at winter pasture this afternoon with Eakins and the boys when I heard you say very clearly you were expecting them down here by the end of the week?"
"Eakins had a little problem he wanted me to handle," her father answered readily. "It didn't take above two
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>
hours for me to ride and come down, now did it?"
He beamed at Kalida, who sat stiffly in her wheeled chair across the table from her father, glaring at him. "It would not have taken Deuce above two hours to — " she began angrily, but her father held up his hand. "Really, Kalida; I thought the matter was settled. I should not be privy to things that go on between you and Deuce in private." He raised his fine white brows and shook his head. "Everything is going forward with great dispatch. Deuce had the papers drawn up already. He is anxious, Kalida, even though he pretends he is doing me the favor. That should please you. You should be very pleased indeed." He bent his head back toward his plate and so did not see Kalida's murderous gaze skim over him and lance into Ellie, who was nodding her agreement of her father's assessment. Hadn't she seen it herself. But then suddenly Kalida's anger dissolved into something akin to resignation and she said wearily, "No, I am not pleased, Papa. But everything shall be as you wish."
"Well of course," said her father.
"Because I have no choice, do I?" Kalida finished.
Her father's pale blue eyes held her darker ones for a long moment and then he turned away. "No, you don't," he said with uncharacteristic firmness. "It just has to be this way." He let a long, silent moment go by for this irrevocable statement to sink in, and then he looked back up at Kalida and went on. "But I wholeheartedly welcome Deuce as a member of our family, Kalida. Above and beyond my considerations, I still think he is a good match for you."
Kalida's beautiful face twisted into a mask of irony. "Truly, Papa, I am delighted that you had my best interests at heart."
