A subtle stiffening overtook her body as his thighs pressed against hers though layers of cloth.
“Why fight me?” Hunter whispered. “You sense the wildfire waiting for us as clearly as I do.”
“What?”
“This.”
Very carefully, Hunter fitted his mouth to Elyssa’s.
The first smooth touch of her lips burned him so fiercely that it was all he could do not to groan aloud. The depth of his hunger shocked him.
Hunter wanted to thrust his tongue between Elyssa’s lips and demand entrance to her mouth, but only a fool revealed the extent of his hunger to a flirt. Hunter wasn’t a fool.
All he permitted himself was a chaste kiss…and a sweet nibbling along the line of Elyssa’s mouth that was just short of a plea.
The catch and sigh of her minty breath over Hunter’s lips was as heady as whiskey to his heightened senses. His arms tightened just a bit more, pulling Elyssa closer to the hungry contours of his body.
When she stiffened again, Hunter forced the coiled muscles in his arms to relax while his mouth sipped teasingly at hers. Elyssa shifted slightly in his embrace, finding a new balance.
Each brush of her body against his was fuel heaped on the sensual fire burning inside Hunter. His teeth closed with fierce restraint on the curve of Elyssa’s lower lip. Holding the flesh gently captive, he traced it with the tip of his tongue. Passion and the taste of mint made him almost light-headed.
Hunter felt the trembling that went through Elyssa at the caress. He stroked her again with his tongue, hungry for another intimate taste of mint. Then he released her lower lip, tasting its warmth and satin underside as he did.
The mint-scented sigh that rushed over Hunter was an invitation he couldn’t refuse. His tongue followed Elyssa’s indrawn breath between her teeth, caressing her with an intimacy that drew a husky sound from the back of her throat.
Triumph and desire leaped equally in Hunter when he felt the telltale softening of Elyssa in his arms. Though he wanted to thrust into her, filling her with his heat and savor, he forced himself to continue the slow seduction of her mouth as though he were only casually involved in their mutual sensuality.
A civilized gentleman playing with elemental fire.
Hunter’s teasing, restrained caresses both intrigued Elyssa and made her impatient for something she couldn’t name. She knew it existed, though.
She had just discovered its fiery forerunners in the discreet, repeated glide of Hunter’s tongue over hers.
Instinctively Elyssa knew she must get closer to Hunter. Where before she had stiffened when he pulled her against him, now it was her arms tightening, her body urging intimacy with his. Her hands shifted, her arms wound around his neck, and she leaned against his strength.
The luxurious, unexpected pleasure of matching her body with Hunter’s drew another husky sound from Elyssa’s throat. In the space of a hushed breath his arms hardened, shifted, tightened, dragging her so close that she couldn’t breathe.
Elyssa didn’t care. The taste of Hunter was more potent than wine, more complex, utterly untamed. She yielded her mouth to him and took his in turn. Her tongue returned the intimacy she had just learned from him, rubbing over his in a sensuous dance that took the world from beneath her feet.
The intensity of the kiss was like nothing Elyssa had ever experienced. Hunter was heat and lightning and hot caresses consuming her.
And she was fire.
Hunter said something dark against Elyssa’s lips and was answered by the white flash of her teeth. Recklessly she caught his lower lip between her teeth. The exquisite, raking caress she gave Hunter drew a thick sound from his chest.
Instantly Elyssa released his lip.
“I didn’t mean to—” she began.
She got no further. Hunter’s mouth came down hard over hers, his tongue shot deep within, and he held her as though he wanted to sink through her flesh into her very bones.
At first Elyssa simply yielded to the hard luxury of Hunter’s body. Then she fought for the embrace, struggling to get closer to him, closer, needing that closeness with an intensity that would have shaken her had she realized it.
Yet no matter how Elyssa twisted, no matter how she dragged her body over Hunter’s, she couldn’t get close enough to him to satisfy the passionate demands of her own flesh.
It was the same for Hunter. He was rigid with desire, his whole body flexed and hard, his mouth almost bruising in its search for a deeper joining. His hands swept from Elyssa’s shoulders to her hips. His fingers sank into the taut, yielding flesh.
The sound of surprise and pleasure she made at the back of her throat nearly brought Hunter to his knees. He repeated the caress and was rewarded again by a throaty cry and a more complete softening of her body against his.
When Hunter’s long fingers slid from Elyssa’s hips to her ribs and then to her breasts, she stiffened in surprise. Sudden pleasure drenched her, left her trembling, aching. She twisted hungrily, increasing the pressure of his hands on her breasts, for she sensed instinctively that he would soothe their aching.
Hunter said something dark and hungry. Never had a woman been like this for him, matching his sensuality, demanding his caresses, needing him.
Knowing he shouldn’t, not willing to stop himself, Hunter began undoing the tiny buttons on Elyssa’s bodice. While he worked over the buttons, his mouth joined with hers in an elemental intimacy that was as new to him as it was to her.
When the final button came undone, the fragrance of rosemary swirled up from her heated skin.
It was like breathing fire.
The sound Hunter made was of a man in torment. He wanted to kiss the nipples that had risen so swiftly at his touch, but he couldn’t force himself to end the wild mating of his mouth with Elyssa’s.
Distantly Elyssa understood that her dress was undone, her chemise was in disarray, and Hunter’s hands were caressing her bare breasts.
She didn’t care about her nakedness. All she wanted was to have the aching in her body be answered by Hunter’s soothing, inciting, consuming caresses.
Hunter tore his mouth from Elyssa’s and lifted her swiftly. The fragrance of rosemary was all around his face. He breathed it in, worshipped it, and suckled a soft breast whose nipple drew up hard against his tongue.
The coolness of moonlight and night against Elyssa’s heated skin was like a benediction to her.
And Hunter’s mouth was a sultry paradise.
Wildfire raced through Elyssa, shaking her, burning her. Every breath she took was a hungry sound, a sensuous whimper, a husky demand.
Hunter felt the night turning to fire around him. He wanted nothing more in life than to release his restraint and sink into the heart of wildfire and beyond, into a burning land he had never known before, yet had hungered for all of his life.
He knew with utter certainty that such a world was here, finally, within reach. Within his arms. Burning.
For him.
And Hunter was on fire for her in a way far more dangerous than anything he had felt with Belinda.
The knowledge was like being dropped into ice water.
With a savage curse Hunter set Elyssa back on her feet. She stumbled and clung more tightly to him. He dragged her arms from around his neck and set her at arm’s length.
“Hunter?”
Elyssa’s dazed, husky voice undermined his determination. The sight of her creamy breasts and taut, hungry nipples nearly undid him.
The realization that he was so much within Elyssa’s sensual grasp brought control to Hunter as nothing else could have.
“Damnation.”
Self-discipline returned to Hunter in an icy rush. Along with it came scorn—at himself for his lack of self-control, at Elyssa for tempting him so mercilessly, and at his own body for being so easily and totally aroused by a little flirt.
When Hunter reached for Elyssa once more, she put her arms around his neck and lifted her face for one of
the hot, drugging kisses she had just learned to lose herself in.
Hunter turned his face aside and removed Elyssa’s arms from around his neck.
“That’s enough,” he said roughly.
Elyssa started to speak. No words came.
“Button up your dress before someone comes out of the bunkhouse,” Hunter said.
Confused, off balance, uncertain, Elyssa just looked at Hunter. In the moonlight his eyes were as clear and cold as a winter sky.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered.
With an impatient curse, Hunter straightened Elyssa’s chemise over her breasts. The brush of her taut nipples against his fingers made her breath break.
“H-Hunter?”
Elyssa’s husky whisper tempted Hunter beyond endurance, as did her satin skin and hard-tipped breasts. With abrupt motions he began fastening her bodice.
“Fun’s over,” he said curtly. “I’m through fooling around in the moonlight with an experienced little flirt.”
“I’m not a—”
“The hell you aren’t,” Hunter interrupted roughly. “You like getting all hot and bothered and having your breasts kissed. No innocent girl would have let me do that.”
The flush that suffused Elyssa’s cheeks was visible even in moonlight. She looked down at her bodice. The sight of Hunter’s long fingers buttoning her back into her dress sent an odd weakness through her bones.
“I’ve never done this,” Elyssa said huskily. “You’re the first. Surely you know that!”
“Don’t bother with all the lies about how I’m different from the others. I’m not a boy. I don’t need lies to feel important.”
Confusion, frustration, and flat-out irritation replaced desire in Elyssa. She put her hands on her hips.
“Why won’t you listen to me?” she demanded.
“Keep your voice down unless you want to put on a show for the bunkhouse.”
“You’re acting like I’m the one who started all this,” Elyssa whispered fiercely. “You did! I didn’t have the least idea what you—what I—what we—damn.”
“Uh-huh,” Hunter said, unimpressed.
He fastened the last button and stepped back, grateful to be finished. The feel of Elyssa’s silky breasts was branded on his hands. His skin burned with the memory of her heat.
“I know it comes as a surprise to a flirt like you,” Hunter said curtly, “but some men can’t be brought to heel by a girl’s soft body, no matter how experienced she is at love play.”
“The only ‘experience’ I have is what you just gave me!”
“Are you saying,” Hunter drawled sardonically, “that I’m so damned irresistible to you that you get all hot and bothered at a few kisses?”
Abruptly Elyssa remembered the lessons her English cousins had taught her. Her reckless temper cooled instantly.
“I’d be a fool to admit that, wouldn’t I?” she whispered.
“Fool or a liar. Either one isn’t guaranteed to attract a man.”
“Really? Is that why you were all over me like a summer rash?”
Hunter’s mouth tightened.
“You wanted me, Hunter.” Elyssa looked pointedly at the fit of his trousers. “You still do.”
The reminder of just how close he had come to losing control didn’t help Hunter’s mood one bit.
“Wanted you?” Hunter shrugged. “I wanted a woman, period. You were handy.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You should.”
“Why? It’s not true. You don’t look at Penny the way you look at me, and she’s a woman.”
“Hell,” Hunter snarled. “Give it up, Sassy.”
“Give up what? The truth?”
“The truth is that a man no more cares who he eases his ache with than a stallion asks the pedigree of a mare before he mounts her.”
Elyssa’s breath came in hard. She fought not to give in to the emotions tearing her apart. Her only consolation was that Hunter, despite his denials, had been as involved in the passionate embrace as she was.
If all Hunter had in mind was lust, he would have kept on undressing me, Elyssa told herself. God knows I wouldn’t have stopped him.
The realization of her own complex hunger for Hunter dismayed Elyssa. She had never been this vulnerable, even when she was a frightened fifteen-year-old thrown on the mercy of cousins who had no kindness in them.
How long is it going to take for Hunter to get over his wife and admit that he’s falling in love with me? Elyssa asked herself fearfully. He’s so hardheaded.
There was no answer to Elyssa’s troubling question, unless it was Hunter’s broad back as he headed toward the dense shadows of the barn.
Elyssa shivered and rubbed her arms to chase away a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. She watched Hunter until she couldn’t separate him from the overwhelming darkness of the night itself.
With hesitant steps, Elyssa turned to her garden once more, taking what solace she could in the fragrant herbs.
11
For several days Hunter avoided being alone with Elyssa. She told herself it was a sign of victory.
Hers.
Hunter doesn’t want to admit it, Elyssa assured herself, but he has strong feelings toward me.
And it’s more than just lust.
Part of Elyssa believed what she was telling herself.
And part of her knew that she was whistling in the dark as she walked past a graveyard that she feared might hold her dreams.
Unhappily Elyssa shifted in the saddle. Her very bones ached from the constant riding. But at least there were no flapping skirts to deal with anymore.
She and Penny had ripped apart an old riding habit and thrown out the petticoats. The heavy black silk of the top still fit like a shadow, but she had narrowed the fullness around each leg until the skirt was little more than loose pants. One of Penny’s old wool-lined buckskin jackets completed Elyssa’s outfit.
With her hair tucked beneath her hat, Elyssa looked enough like a man from a distance that Hunter had quit complaining about dragging her all over the landscape like a fancy lure.
Elyssa reined Leopard around a fresh pile of rubble that had collected at the bottom of the gully. The stones and mud and brush had come down the steep slope of the ravine in a small avalanche during the last big rain.
It was a common problem during the monsoon months. The rain came in torrents, boiled down the mountain slopes, hurtled through ravines, and spilled into the marshland out at the edges of the ranch. Often, big chunks of the various ravines came down with the rains.
Elyssa stood in the stirrups, looking for any sign of cattle amid the brush and piñons. The dogs had come up this narrow, damp ravine and not come back.
She wasn’t worried about the dogs. They were fully capable of working alone. Probably they had scrambled up out of the bottom of the ravine to search another of the thousand nameless gullies where cattle fed and sheltered.
As Elyssa settled into the saddle once more, her thoughts turned again to the moonlit garden. Though Hunter’s embrace had lasted only a few moments, those moments had turned her world upside down.
No man with only lust on his mind would have kissed me so tenderly at first. And then so wildly.
And then stopped.
Just stopped.
A blush crept up Elyssa cheeks. Part of the color came from embarrassment at the memory of how wanton she had been in Hunter’s arms. Part of the flush was anger at what Hunter had said while he buttoned her bodice.
And most of the heat in Elyssa’s cheeks came from passion, pure and deep and potent.
Without warning Leopard’s head came up hard. Ears pricked, he stood motionless for an instant.
With an odd, sighing grumble, a piece of the rim slumped away from the side of the ravine.
The stallion spun on his hocks, leaped, and lunged frantically up the steep slope on the side opposite from the avalanche. The abrupt, lurching movements unseated Ely
ssa. Without knowing it, she screamed. The scream was cut off when she hit the ground and tumbled head over heels.
Even before Elyssa stopped rolling, she sensed that she was safe from the avalanche. The stallion’s catlike quickness had already taken her beyond the tangled rush of mud and stone that was sweeping down the ravine.
Elyssa’s chilling scream brought Hunter at a dead gallop from the next gully to the north, spurring Bugle Boy every step of the way. What he saw when he entered the ravine was a tangle of debris, a spotted stud standing free of the mess, and an empty saddle.
“Elyssa!”
Nothing answered his cry.
A fear gripped Hunter that was like nothing he had ever felt. Heedless of the danger to himself, he sent Bugle Boy along the ragged, treacherous edge of the landslide.
Elyssa can’t be buried underneath all that.
She can’t be.
But she very well could, and Hunter knew it better than most men. The war had taught him how indifferent death was to human emotion.
“Sassy! Where are you?”
This time a faint groan answered Hunter’s call. He reined Bugle Boy around with a fierce movement and sent him scrambling over to the far side of the ravine.
Elyssa lay on her back, tangled among willows. Her arms were flung out and her eyes were closed.
Before Bugle Boy could come to a lunging stop, Hunter kicked free of the stirrups and knelt by Elyssa’s side. He could see that she was struggling for breath. At first it reassured him.
Then it frightened him.
“Sassy?” Hunter asked gently. “Honey? Where does it hurt?”
At first Elyssa thought she was in bed, dreaming.
Surely she couldn’t be awake and hearing such tender concern in Hunter’s voice.
She opened her eyes, prepared to be disappointed. The concern on Hunter’s face was even greater than in his deep voice.
Shakily Elyssa caught his face between her hands and smiled despite the pallor of her lips. Knowing that Hunter cared about her was a warmth stealing through the chill in her bones.
“I’m—fine,” she said raggedly.
As Elyssa spoke, she stroked Hunter’s face. It was meant as a gesture of reassurance, but it quickly became something more.
Autumn Lover Page 14
