GABRIEL HAWK'S LADY

by Beverly Barton

  "Oh." Rorie had to admit that she'd never considered Hawk's obsession with timing a part of her training. She'd thought he was just being mean.

  "Yeah, oh." He released her chin. "Come on. Sam's gym is down here on the ground level of the house."

  She followed him past what he told her were Manton's private quarters and on to a set of double doors on the opposite end of the house.

  Hawk opened the doors to reveal a state-of-the-art gym, with a variety of exercise equipment that included a treadmill, stair stepper, cross-country skier and a stationary bicycle, as well as numerous weight machines. One whole wall was mirrored.

  "Before I start you on any of the equipment, we'll do some warm-up exercises," Hawk said. "We'll wait until tomorrow to start your practice on the obstacle course. But this afternoon I'll introduce you to aerobic exercises and some power yoga."

  "Power yoga? Isn't that an oxymoron? I thought yoga was supposed to be a calm, relaxed form of exercise."

  "Power-yoga techniques help release the shoulders for activities like swimming, and it's good for opening up the hip joints and buttocks for running."

  "Sounds like a lot of fun," she said sarcastically.

  "But before we do anything, I need to take your measurements and weigh you."

  "What!"

  "I expect you to lose a few pounds and inches, if you stick with this training for the entire two weeks. I want to be able to check your progress."

  Rorie poked Hawk in the chest with her index finger. "Now, let's get one thing straight. Only I, my doctor and God know how much I weigh. And my measurements are top secret."

  "Don't act so silly about this. I can look at you and pretty much guess your measurements—about 38-28-38, I'd say. And as for your weight—"

  Rorie covered his mouth with her hand and glared at him. She felt his lips twitching beneath her palm. "You're not going to weigh me and you're not going to take my measurements." He licked her palm. Gasping, she jerked her hand from his mouth.

  "What if I told you that if you don't agree to being weighed and measured, you'll be breaking the terms of our deal by not following my orders?"

  "I'd say your weighing and measuring me has nothing to do with our deal—that you just want to embarrass me in the hopes I'll run away and cry."

  "Will you be embarrassed?" he asked. "Will you run away and cry?"

  "I'll be embarrassed, but I won't run away and cry."

  "Then go hop up on the scales, while I find the tape measure." He didn't think she would do it. He knew how vain women were about their weight and measurements. Women usually lied about their weight as often as they did about their age.

  If looks could kill, he would be a dead man. Rorie glowered at him with pure, undisguised loathing. But she stomped across the gym and stepped up on the scale. Well, I'll be damned, he thought.

  He rummaged in a corner desk, retrieved a tape measure, pad and pencil and walked over to where Rorie waited for him. She didn't look at him or acknowledge his existence in any way while he weighed her.

  "Hmmm. You weigh more than I thought," he said. "It must be because you're so solid." He scribbled her weight on the pad and stuck the pad in the pocket of his shorts.

  "May I step down now?"

  He took her by the arm. She jerked away. He chuckled. "Angry with me?"

  "I'm so mad I could spit … right in one of your evil black eyes." She spoke slowly, enunciating every word.

  "Now, let me get your measurements." Hawk didn't know when he'd enjoyed anything quite so much as irritating the hell out of Rorie Dean. She was fit to be tied and would like nothing better than to scratch his eyes out. But despite the steam rising inside her, she retained a calm, controlled facade.

  One thing was certain—by encouraging her anger and hatred, he was making sure she didn't get any foolish, romantic notions about him. After last night, during Manton's mesmerizing piano concerto, he'd worried that Rorie might mistake plain old lust for something else.

  Hawk whipped out the tape measure, eased it around her waist and clicked his tongue. "Twenty-eight inches." Removing the tape, he pulled out the notepad, wrote down the figure and then stuck the pad back in his pocket.

  He measured her hips. Forty inches. He let out a long, low whistle. Rorie stood perfectly straight and still. Not moving a muscle. Barely breathing. He wrapped the tape around her back and brought it across her breasts. His knuckles scraped across her nipples. She sucked in her breath. Her nipples puckered to diamond-hard points.

  Hawk swallowed hard. "Forty inches." He hadn't meant to touch her intimately, to arouse her or himself. But the damage had been done. Her nipples were tight, and so was his sex.

  "Upper arms and thighs, now." He measured her arms, then knelt before her and slipped his hand between her legs, parting them.

  She shivered involuntarily when he measured her. His big hand was warm and hard against the tender flesh of her inner thigh.

  Standing quickly, Hawk pulled out the notepad. His hand shook so badly, he had to wait a couple of seconds before he wrote down her other measurements.

  He had thought of weighing and measuring her as a scare tactic—one that might put an end to this ridiculous bargain they'd made. But all his "scare" tactic had done was make her dig her heels in, more determined than ever to prove herself to him.

  And his actions had also given him a royal hard-on.

  If Rorie thought she'd made a pact with the devil, she was right. He was the kind of man who did whatever was necessary to win, no matter who got hurt.

  But what he hadn't counted on was that it bothered his conscience to hurt Rorie Dean.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  « ^ »

  Hawk hesitated outside Rorie's door. He glanced down at his wristwatch. Ten minutes after five. Lifting his hand, he formed a fist and knocked softly. For the life of him, he wasn't quite sure why he hated disturbing her. He thought he had talked himself out of feeling sorry for Rorie Dean. After all, she was the one who had agreed to this bargain, who had insisted on being stubborn and unrelenting. It wasn't his fault if she didn't have sense enough to know she wasn't capable of undertaking a dangerous mission that required the kind of physical stamina she didn't possess.

  He had put her through a fairly rigorous routine yesterday, especially for someone unaccustomed to daily physical exercise. She had panted and heaved and grunted and sweated. But not once had she begged for mercy. Not once had she refused to do what he asked. She'd been so exhausted that she'd almost fallen asleep during dinner and had gone to bed immediately following the meal. He'd been tempted to check on her before he went to bed, but he hadn't.

  He knocked again. No response. Maybe her alarm hadn't gone off. Or maybe she'd turned off the alarm and gone back to sleep. She was probably irritable since every muscle in her body was bound to be sore from yesterday's workout.

  "Rorie? Are you awake?"

  "Yes," she groaned.

  "Are you decent?"

  "If you're asking if I have on any clothes, then yes, I'm decent. I'm still in my gown."

  He opened the door and walked in. Frowning when he looked into the bedroom and saw her still in bed, he marched through the sitting room and straight to her bedside. He flung back the covers. Rorie screeched.

  "Get up and get ready. I thought you understood the importance of being punctual."

  "If I could get up, I would." She lay on her side, her gown bunched up around her hips, her full, shapely body exposed from upper thigh to bright red toenails. Instinctively, Hawk leaned over and swatted her on the behind. She cried out in pain.

  "I didn't hit you that hard," he said. "What's wrong with you?"

  "For your information, Mr. Hawk, my body is in agony. There isn't one inch of me that isn't aching and so sore I can barely move."

  "It's only natural that you'd be sore from all the exercise you did yesterday. The best thing for you is to get up and work the soreness out of your body." When he grabbed her hands
and pulled her up into a sitting position, she screamed. He released her immediately. "Dammit!"

  "Don't you curse at me, you … you … slave driver, you! If you hadn't pushed me so hard, expected me to jump through hoops for you, I wouldn't be in this shape."

  "Why the hell didn't you tell me you'd had enough, that you couldn't take any more? I'd have slowed down." He noted how pale her face was since he'd forced her to sit. "All you had to do was say the word and we could have stopped."

  "And have you call me a quitter?" She glared at him, her blue eyes focusing on his face. "No way was I going to give you an excuse to call off our deal."

  "Stubborn idiot female," Hawk said, then lowered his voice and grumbled a few choice imprecations. "Just stay where you are. I'll be back in a minute."

  When he went into her bathroom, she called out to him. "What are you doing?"

  "Drawing you a hot bath. You need to soak those tired muscles. Then, after your bath, I'll give you a massage and work out some of the soreness."

  "How do you suggest I get to the tub? Crawl?"

  Hawk chuckled. "That sore, huh?"

  "You're being a total jerk about this, you know. But I shouldn't have expected anything else from you, should I?"

  He walked out of the bathroom and hovered in the doorway. "Don't be so glum. You'll live."

  "I'm not so sure. There's not one spot on my body that isn't sore. Even my hair aches."

  "After a good hot soak and a massage, you should be able to go for our morning trek around the island and then do a few laps in the pool." He grinned wickedly. "After that, you can take the morning off. We'll check out the obstacle course this afternoon and get in a little target practice, too."

  Rorie groaned. "You're too kind. I can hardly wait to see the scene of my future torture. And the very thought of handling a deadly weapon excites me no end."

  "Get your fanny in motion, lady." Crossing his arms over his chest, he surveyed her from the top of her tousled blond hair to the tips of her round, pink toes. "I'd carry you to the bathtub if I didn't think I'd throw my back out doing it."

  He'd made the statement as a joke, but the moment he saw the stricken look on her face, he wished the words back. He'd hurt her feelings. He saw it in her misty eyes, her clenched jaw, her flushed cheeks.

  Why the hell should you care that you hurt her feelings? The meaner, the more rotten you treat her, the more likely she is to give up this insane notion of training for a mission into San Miguel. The more she hates you, the better. If she hates you, she won't get any romantic notions about you.

  When Rorie tried to crawl out of bed, she gasped, then bit down on her bottom lip and continued the effort. By the time she was on her feet, her face was as pale as chalk, sweat coated her forehead and tears trickled down her cheeks.

  Suddenly Hawk felt like the jerk she had accused him of being. Rorie was in terrible pain. Any fool could see how badly she was hurting. He had done this to her. Pushing her beyond her limits in his effort to make her cry uncle. He had convinced himself that she had sense enough to tell him when she'd had enough. Obviously her stubbornness and determination had overruled her common sense. And his own stubbornness and determination had endangered someone he had been hired to protect.

  Without saying another word to her, he rushed across the room, lifted her into his arms and headed toward the bathroom. She cried out when he swept her off her feet. Hastily, she threw her arm around his neck.

  "What are you doing?" she demanded, her startled, tear-filled eyes fixed on his face. "Put me down. I'd never forgive myself if you threw your back out."

  "Shut up, will you? You might not be a featherweight, but in case you haven't noticed, I'm a big, strong man."

  When he reached the bathtub, filled with steaming-hot water, he eased her feet down to the floor and felt a twinge of sympathy when she gasped in pain.

  He undid the top button on her gown. She slapped away his hand. "Now what do you think you're doing?"

  "Helping you undress."

  "I think I can manage," she told him. "Go away and leave me alone."

  "Maybe I should wait outside, just in case you need me."

  "I won't need you."

  "Okay. I'll go down to the kitchen and get breakfast ready and bring it up here. We can eat before I massage the kinks out of your sore muscles."

  He was gone before Rorie could reply. She stood on wobbly legs, her stomach queasy, her hands shaky. Unbuttoning her gown proved to be easy compared to easing her sore arms through the sleeves. Why had she been such a fool yesterday? Why had she allowed Hawk to goad her into over-exerting herself the way she had? She blamed him for being such an overbearing taskmaster, for pushing her beyond her limit. But she had to take at least partial blame for allowing him to drive her so hard.

  After dropping her gown down her hips and onto the tiled floor, she lifted one leg over and into the tub, testing the water. Groaning as pain sliced up her calf, through her thigh and into her hip, she cautiously lifted her other leg, slid down into the whirlpool and immersed herself in the hot water.

  Twenty minutes later, Hawk knocked on the bathroom door. "Time to get out. Just wrap yourself in a towel and come on in here. Coffee's hot."

  Rorie shook her head. No. Absolutely not. Hawk was nuts if he thought she was going to parade around in front of him in nothing but a towel. By nature and upbringing, she was a modest woman. Exposing herself to Hawk in her bathing suit had been unnerving. The very thought of presenting her body to him for a massage was unthinkable, especially if she was covered with only a towel.

  She eased up and out of the tub, wrapped a towel turban-fashion around her wet head and dried her body slowly, being careful not to stretch too much in the effort. After slipping into her gown, she walked out of the bathroom. The hot whirlpool bath had helped ease her sore muscles a little, but she was still aching so much that she doubted her body would ever fully recover.

  Standing in the sitting-room doorway, Hawk held a cup of coffee out to her. She accepted the black coffee. She preferred sweet, creamy, mild coffee, but Hawk had pointed out yesterday that sugar and cream were not on her diet.

  "Thanks." Lifting the mug to her lips, she sipped the strong brew. "The hot bath helped some. I don't think a massage is necessary."

  "Let's eat breakfast." He nodded to the round, cloth-covered table where he had placed their meal.

  She followed him to the table. Acting gentlemanly for the first time since she'd met him, Hawk pulled out a chair and seated her. "Thank you."

  "Eat up." He removed the cover from the breakfast tray, revealing two bowls of dry cereal, a pitcher of milk and two glasses of orange juice.

  "Don't tell me that you and I are actually going to eat the same thing for breakfast this morning. You can't test my willpower if you don't eat something tempting, the way you did yesterday."

  Hawk sat opposite her, lifted the pitcher of milk and doused his cereal. "All right, I admit that I went a little overboard yesterday, in every respect. It was cruel of me to eat bacon and eggs in front of you, while you had to eat non-fat yogurt."

  "Yes, it was cruel. And petty and mean and—"

  "Let's just agree that I acted like a real bastard yesterday and leave it at that." When he noted the disapproving frown on her face, he groaned. "Lady, I am not going to clean up my language for you."

  Glancing away, she set down her coffee cup and picked up her juice glass. They ate in silence, each avoiding eye contact with the other. The minute she finished the last bite of cereal, Hawk scooted back his chair and stood.

  "Go lie on the bed, facedown," he said. "A massage should get out enough kinks so you can get in your morning walk and swim.

  "I don't need a massage. I'll be all right without it."

  "This is a perfect example of why I don't want to take you into San Miguel." Hawk jerked her chair away from the table, grabbed her arms and drew her to her feet. "In a dangerous situation, I couldn't afford the time to argue with you,
to try to convince you to follow my orders. Your stubbornness could cost us both our lives."

  "We aren't in San Miguel and this is hardly a life-or-death situation." She glared down at his big hands tightly holding her arms.

  "No, but this is a part of your training. Obedience to my commands and punctuality are as crucial as your physical training."

  "Oh, all right." Rorie pulled away from him. "Give me the darn massage." She whirled around and stomped off into the bedroom.

  The sound from Hawk's throat was a combination of groan and chuckle. Darn. He supposed that was the closest Rorie ever came to cursing.

  She flopped, facedown, on the bed. "Well, what are you waiting for? Let's get this over with."

  Hawk hesitated momentarily as he braced himself for what was to come. Rorie needed this massage. But it wouldn't be easy putting his hands on her body and remaining unaffected. Usually, when he touched a woman, it was for one reason and one reason only—foreplay. His sex stirred to life just at the thought.

  He retrieved a bottle of lotion from the bathroom, then crawled onto the bed and straddled Rorie's hips. She didn't move a muscle or say a word, but her breathing accelerated and deepened. Removing the towel from around her hair, he lifted the long, blond mass off her back, separated it into two sections and laid them across the bed on each side of her head.

  "Unbutton your gown and ease it down to your waist," he told her.

  "Is that necessary?" Cocking her head to one side, she craned her neck and looked up at him.

  "No, it's not necessary." Reaching behind him, he clutched the hem of her gown and lifted it. "If you'd rather, I can pull your gown up to your neck and—"

  "No!" She wriggled beneath him, her hips brushing his thigh. "I'll unbutton my gown."

  After she undid her gown, he helped her ease the garment to her waist. She lay beneath him, her breasts flattened into the mattress, and held her breath, waiting for him to touch her.

  Hawk squirted some of the honeysuckle-scented lotion into his hands, spread it across Rorie's naked back, then grasped her shoulders. The moment he encompassed her shoulders, she tensed.