by Thea Devine
No, we're not, she thought, and wrenched away from him. "Not 'we,' Papa," she reminded him gently.
His face clouded with remorse. "It's almost the same," he said. "I'm doing it for you and for the memory of your mama. The ranch is your inheritance, Kalida; Deuce can't take that away from you."
"No," she said longingly, "just everything else."
Ryland paced slowly to the window and looked out.
"Kalida, if you were anywhere near realistic about this, you would admit there wasn't anywhere near 'everything else.' You keep acting like you're losing something, but you're not. You're gaining, you're winning. You have a place, a position, an inheritance now. You're going to win it all. . . ."
"Including a man I despise," she interrupted roughly.
"I don't believe that," her father said placatingly. "There's nothing wrong with Deuce. Nothing," he emphasized.
"He's a damned despot," Kalida retorted.
"He wouldn't even try to rule you," her father countered. "He knows you too well."
"Tell me that when you hear he may rescind his proposal. Now he's got you where he wants you. The thought has occurred to me that he engineered that fire somehow."
"Nonsense!" her father snapped. "You're letting your emotions override your good sense, Kalida. Deuce is not capable of that kind of meanness."
"That always assuming that you don't know what it is you have that he wants," Kalida rejoined stonily. "And I don't mean me."
"You don't know what you mean," Ryland countered angrily, his temper rising, not at her accusations but at her emotional state. He did not want to know the things she was thinking. He wanted everything in place and nothing to hamper his ability to spend the money that
Deuce had paid him. He wanted none of Kalida's fanciful notions. Besides, he was absolutely sure that her head was being ruled by her last-minute jitters. Nothing else could account for the wild ideas she was throwing around.
Deuce, an arsonist! "Deuce will tame you," he threw out, stalking to the door. "It's the one thing he can do with impunity that / can't."
* * *
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Her father was being dense, Kalida thought abstractedly not for the hundredth time as she watched the twilight descend over the hills. But she had prepared him now, even if he thought her charges were fantastic. Oh, he would find out there was more to Deuce Cavender's openhanded willingness to finance him, she was sure of it.
She paced the room furiously, pulling at a strand of her inky hair without even being aware of it. She had done all she could with her father, she decided. She had prepared him for the fact that Deuce probably had an ulterior motive for offering his unstinting aid, and she had hinted that her own status with Deuce might change. If he refused to believe it, that was his lookout. Now all she needed was a skirt, a shirtwaist, and some boots. Damn, where was Ellie? She was getting a little tired of the thin silk robe that was wrinkled now, and crackled and clung to her body with her every movement. She had assumed Ellie would be up to see her the moment she entered the house.
She darted to the door, opened it and stepped into the narrow hallway. Voices wafted up the stairs, chiefly Ellie's and Ardelle's, and she moved closer to the head of the stairs to hear them more distinctly.
Yes . . . Ellie was clearly showing off the results of Deuce's largesse. Kalida slid her body down against the stair wall until she was on her haunches, and she listened with resentment to Ardelle's admiring voice as Ellie unwrapped packages. There was a murmur of appreciation and then Ardelle's voice said, "Yes, this will do nicely for Kalida. Where is she, anyway?"
An indistinguishable comment from Ellie preceded a silence, and then the appearance of Deuce at the head of the stairs, his arms full of materials, and behind him, Ellie holding a kerosene lamp high.
They saw Kalida crouched on the landing, her silken
robe a pool of riotous color around her bared legs, her hair in disarray, her eyes blazing molten blue, looking like some wild, untamed animal preparing to leap.
"Well, well," said Deuce mildly, "the stuff of my dreams: Kalida anxiously awaiting me at the top of the steps."
Her head jolted backward as if she had been struck, and she slowly slid herself upright, propping her body against the wall with her hands, bracing herself against some kind of onslaught.
"You must have continual nightmares," she said suddenly, her voice as bland as Deuce's.
"You silly girl," Ardelle interrupted impatiently. "You must dress for dinner. Now, Deuce . . ."
He turned to her. "You take this stuff to my room, you and Ellie. I'll see to Kalida." He lifted his arms and a waterfall of material drifted into Ardelle's outstretched arms. She made her way up the steps with surprising alacrity and an ungracious look in her eye. "Only because you say so, Deuce; this is just highly improper. . . ."
"Of course it is," he agreed, winking at Ellie who following, carrying bundles of underclothes. "But Kalida doesn't look in the mood to agree to anything, and I think I may have to persuade her."
"A neat end to your singularly successful day of buying everything and everyone in sight," Kalida muttered, squeezing herself against the wall as Deuce approached her.
"I haven't counted the cost yet," he murmured, settling himself directly in front of her and bracing his arms against the wall on either side of her shoulders.
"You may find it beyond your means," Kalida retorted.
"And you may find your vindictiveness will cost you more than you dreamed," he ground out.
"How could it? I'm a beggar now, am I not? I've saved my father, and I am here as you wish. You are about to
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supply me with the clothes on my back and the very food I eat. You need not be honorable, and all I need to do is provide the body, since my father has traded away everything else." She was trembling with a fine anger now, wrought up at having been left alone, at feeling imprisoned, at the duplicity of her father and him. Mistress, yes, and she hadn't even said the word, but she would. She would. And she'd make a fine one for him because even now, in the depth of this holocaust of anger she felt against him, she quivered at his nearness, responsive to the scent of him inches away from her and the memory of what his mouth could do to her, to any part of her. . . . She didn't know if she had the strength to resist that hot knowledge when every fiber of her being yearned to have him touch her again.
"Yes, give me the body," Deuce agreed harshly," and the rest I can take — willingly or unwillingly, Kalida. But the secret is —and you and I both know it—that it is more willing than unwilling."
"Then I'm a better actress than I thought," Kalida said sweetly, striking out with the first notion at hand as his mouth came closer and closer to hers, and his purpose became crystal clear that in spite of the presence of Ellie or his sister, he would possess her where and when he would.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ellie and Ardelle emerge from Deuce's bedroom and come back down the hallway, their eyes curious, more than curious because Deuce did not move and neither did she.
Deuce did not even look at them as he spoke to Ardelle. "When is dinner?"
"Half hour," she answered tersely, and limped down the steps without a backward look, followed by Ellie who turned one covetous glance to him before she disappeared downstairs.
"Thought they would save you?" Deuce asked in an almost conversational tone of voice.
"They?" Her own tone mirrored disbelief. "Your grateful vassals? They wouldn't dare oppose you. They're as impoverished as I; you merely demand a different fealty from them.
"Oh God, you are a piece of work, Kalida. That unruly tongue of yours is going to get you into more trouble . . . so the only thing for me to do obviously"—he bent his head toward her again —"is keep you very . . . very busy," and his mouth settled emphatically on hers.
She held the wall; she would not touch him, even though her legs felt like buckling, even though his body covered hers as completely as if they were lying together. Sh
e could do nothing, not even prevent her disobedient body from responding to his outrageous seduction, and then she wanted to do nothing except answer the violent urgency of his will.
The darkness surrounded them. His hands moved from the wall to thread through her dark-as-the-night tumbling hair, to pull her still closer, more fully to his mouth and against his body. His long legs tangled with hers, his knee parting her legs. His right hand skimmed to her neck, her shoulder, and then the silk-shrouded curve of her breast and rested there, hot and all encompassing.
His mouth eased off of hers, and there was a long, taut moment of tension as she licked her bruised lips and felt, with every inch of her being, his one hand holding and feeling her breast; a breathless tense moment as she waited for him to find, in the forgiving darkness, the taut hard tip, waited for him to caress the straining nipple; waited, arching toward him, inviting his hand to move and his fingers to surround that quivering pleasure point. Waited in the tumultuous silence as though it were the only thing in the world she wanted. It was the only thing she wanted. She would die if he did not feel, in the next minute, the lush rigidity of her nipple. Her tense hand,
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unable to stand it, reached up and pushed aside the thin material of the robe; her whisper of a voice commanded, "Touch me, Deuce, now."
His hand and mouth moved simultaneously; his tongue found hers and instant his fingers touched her naked nipple, and she swooned at the rippling eddies of feeling that cascaded through her veins.
"Hang on to me, Kalida." His voice was the merest hoarse breath against her mouth as he eased away. He felt her hands grip his forearms, and her left hand urging his to her right breast, demanding that he strip away the flimsy covering and discover the naked treasure there. He cupped it, feeling its contour while he still held, between his thumb and forefinger, her turgid left nipple, just touching it, just enough to let her know his fingers were there. Her gasping moans told him she knew his fingers were there, and she begged now for him to caress her bared left nipple in exactly the same way. He held off, merely stroking the side of her breast while she writhed in anticipation, waiting again, waiting as his fingers came closer, and closer still, barely brushing the areola now, so slow, evoking feelings so thick and lush it was like she was swimming in sweet honey. She felt every movement of his hand now, in the silence that had grown molten with heat and sensual tension, every flex of his fingers as they slid with unerring precision exactly to the sensitized nipple that awaited them so eagerly, settling as gently as a breath around the taut tip.
She groaned ecstatically just at the sense of knowing his fingers surrounded each naked nipple, and the knowledge of what those fingers could do to her if they made just the barest movement. They didn't move. Her imagination supplied from memory the feelings that were as real as if he were caressing her, and the dark and the heat steamed up between them—because she knew, she knew at any moment he would caress her nipples and she would explode.
She felt her body arching toward him, luring him, inviting him, teasing him, enticing him to squeeze and fondle her. She wanted him to both hold her that way forever and to finish what he had started. The anticipation was electric and almost unbearable. He breathed her name into the stark silence and she jerked backward, contracting her stomach and hunching her shoulders. His fingers constricted, squeezing just the pebble-hard nub — just right.
She almost screamed at the dazzling sensation that shot through her whole body like a steam of glittering lights, a waterfall of them raining through every pore of her body. His mouth devoured her ecstasy and consumed it as his hands now devoured her breasts every way he could think of.
He growled unintelligible urgent words against her swollen lips, making her aware of her nakedness and feminity all at once, making her yearn for him-him?
He contained her ecstatic moans with his insatiable mouth. She was utterly soft now, pliant; he felt as if he held the world in his hands, and it still was not enough. He could never get enough. Her avid hips grinding against his thighs was not enough. Just feeling her ripe, straining nipples was not enough. He wanted more, and more, and his mouth ripped away from hers and followed a burning course to her jawline, her ear, her neck, the sensitive hollow of her collarbone, to the enticing cleft between her breasts.
Yes, she breathed, or thought it, or remembered it with such an intensity that he knew she needed the heat of his mouth against her right breast, trailing moist kisses directly to the heart of the matter. Yes, his lips pulled with a gentle tugging at the hard tip of her breast, and somehow her hands entangled themselves in his shadow-dark hair and pushed him closer and tighter, urging him
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to taste and suck.
Her body heaved against his as his hot moist tongue touched her succulent nipple and began its lush exploration. His free hand grasped the curve of her hip, feeling her heated skin through the thin robe, crushing it mercilessly as he moved his hand still further downward, and then paused —and then, in sudden carnal decision, slid to his own belt, his tumultuous desire impelling him to seek the ultimate release.
She wasn't aware of when he removed his muscular thigh and replaced it with his hard, probing manhood, or when his hand slipped under her buttocks to lift her slightly to ease his shocking, gorgeous way within her feminine source that was so luxuriously ready to sheathe him.
Her velvet heat enfolded him, moist and tight, and he filled her so completely, so complexly, that there was no room for protestations or false denials. Even she, in the throes of her surrender and her demand, recognized that this was what she had wanted. This, the soft velvet words from deep in her throat murmured as he thrust upwards, moving his other hand now to hold her around her hips so that he was almost supporting her whole weight in his arms. He gently eased his mouth off her breast and crushed her body against his, holding her this way, with his hard, throbbing manhood deep within her, for a long, ravishing moment so that she could feel him deep within her, answering her need. And then his mouth sought hers without a word, and he began a slow, rhythmic movement that made no demand of her except that she give him everything.
The sensuous slide between her legs, the play of his lovely delicious tongue against hers, the sense of her nakedness against his clothed body, driving relentlessly into hers —these dissociated coherent sensations aroused her beyond anything he had done to her before; her hands
clutched at his shoulders as his arms flexed with the burden of bearing the weight of her body. She was aware only of him and his raw male power that dominated her, that found exactly the right place to stroke, to heat, to drive against with all the virile force he possessed.
And still she felt fragile, feminine, liquid with enveloping passion, crystalline with the knowledge of his desire, and her own,power and response to it. It was perfect; it was building, somewhere there were words — he murmured or she breathed, mouth to mouth — shrouded by the darkness where everything was possible. She was filled with the desire to attain the impossible, reaching again, in the same familiar way that was so different, expanding, climbing, yearning . . . And then it shattered — into a thousand sumptuous, wondrous fragments.
And then they were both still, the echoing storm of their shared ecstasy still reverberating between them. He was still rigid within her, still held her tightly against him. She felt like she might collapse if he let her go.
And suddenly the dark magic evaporated. She became a woman in the hallway being held in an incredibly intimate embrace by a man whom, when she was in her right mind, she could barely tolerate. And she had allowed him to get to her once again; she had allowed her reason to fly in the face of his captivating sorcerer's hands.
She struggled against him in her growing discomfiture; her senses were in total disarray, conflicted by the dazzling pleasure she had just experienced, and the method and the man with whom she had experienced it. "Let me go," she whispered fiercely.
"Really?" he murmured, his mouth
seeking hers again.
She averted her head. "Yes." The word was as harsh and patently negative as she could make it. She felt frantic, overwhelmed and possessed at the same time. And he must have felt it, for he lifted her body slightly
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and eased himself out of her without another word.
She had a distinct sense of becoming herself again as her feet found the floor, Without another word, as he was occupied with putting himself to rights, she stalked down the hallway toward his bedroom, where soft light emitting from the kerosene lamp Ellie had left showed through a crack in the door.
She pushed it open impatiently, dizzy with the ignominy of her shameless response to Deuce. And in a hallway, where Ellie or Ardelle could have sought them out at any moment and found them—the possibility did not bear thinking of. The transient ecstasy was utterly gone. She wanted only to dress and stay dressed forever whenever Deuce was around. And the fragile materials that Ardelle had heaped on the bed didn't look at all as if they would serve the purpose.
Deuce found her clawing through them a moment later as he entered the room. "What are you doing?" he demanded roughly as he pulled her away from the bed and into his arms.
"I am going to get dressed, thank you, and not in any of that thin, unusual garbage that Ellie saw fit to choose for me. I want—" God, she was perilously closer to tears. Kalida bit her lip. "I want a shirt of some kind, and a skirt."
"Don't be a child, Kalida. There are several dresses you can choose from here."
"I don't want a fashionable dress. I want the thickest cotton shirt you can find me and maybe that pinafore that Ellie wore, which covers the whole body, and I just don't ever want to be undressed around you ever again, never, do you hear me?" Oh God, she was dissolving now, and he was seeing her helpless rather than strong; she had to show him rather than evoke his pity and his protective-ness. She wanted nothing more of him, from now on. Nothing. Not after he had made her submit to him in a hallway, for God's sake.
"That remains to be seen," Deuce said harshly, thrusting her onto the bed, onto the rainbow of silks and muslins. "Fine, if you think for one moment you can hide your gorgeous body from me, Kalida. You have yet to learn a little tantalization piques the imagination more than all the revealing silks in the world. You may be sure I'll be thinking, about the tempting treasures beneath whatever rough clothes you choose to wear. I'll remember, Kalida, even if you pretend not to." He strode to the door and slammed it behind him.
