by Robyn Donald
The hot, silken texture of his skin was only slightly roughened by the hair that proclaimed his masculinity. Rewarded by the rapid drumbeat of his heartbeat, Rowan moved her hand tentatively to follow the contour of a muscled shoulder. It tensed beneath her touch, and her eyes flew upwards.
‘Did you think you were the only one affected?’ he asked, the words edged with a spice of mockery. ‘We’re in this together, Rowan.’
But for him this was not new and unexpected.
He must have seen the shadow in her eyes because he leaned down and kissed her mouth.
‘Together,’ he said again, and it was all the reassurance she needed.
Her fingers ventured further, found a small crescent scar on his back and committed it to tactile memory. Smiling, she adjusted her body against the iron-hard length of his; heart singing with frantic excitement, she let him lead her where he wanted to go.
With ardent mouth and clever hands and experienced, arousing earthiness, Wolfe guided her to realms of sensuality Rowan had never imagined. She was filled with the taste of him and the scent of him and the feel of him. And he was gentle—as though he knew that for her this was the first time.
Perhaps he did. Slowly, skilfully, he built the fire inside her with the heat of his mouth on her skin, introducing her to sensations so glittering and exotic that she lost any anchorage in time and space, her whole world contracting to the man who made love like a dark angel.
When at last he moved over her she was glowing and eager, all forebodings wiped away by his clever hands and passionate expertise. The muscles along his jaw and in his arms and shoulders bunched as he fought for control, but slowly, carefully, he eased himself over her. ‘Rowan?’ he asked harshly.
Opening her dazzled eyes, she fixed them on his. Her body clamoured for something she didn’t yet recognise, something she had never known, yet craved. It was too late for tenderness; untamed, ferocious hunger overpowered her. She slid her arms down his back, feeling the iron restraint he’d imposed on himself—imposed on her—and she couldn’t bear it. Her hands clung to his narrow hips; surrendering to her feverish hunger, she arched, enfolding him, making him hers.
He thrust into her in another primitive, desperate claim, burying himself so deep that the shock wave of his possession reverberated through her, the stab of pain passing almost unnoticed.
I’ll never be the same again, she thought dizzily, already wanting more.
Overwhelmed, she whimpered, and he kissed her, letting her get accustomed to the uncompromising male invasion until the feeling of fullness, of unbearable stretching, eased, and her hips tightened against him with involuntary insistence.
Wolfe began to move and she moved with him, awkwardly at first and then with confidence, with pleasure, with languorous hunger. Sensation gathered, spiralled through her body in concentric rings; soon she was aware of nothing but Wolfe’s driving mastery of her responses and the heightening need to strive for some pinnacle, some unknown goal…
And then she reached it in a searing conflagration of unutterable excitement and release, of explosive, rapturous power.
He seemed to contain the force of her orgasm and feed on it, yet somehow channel it back to her, strengthened and intensified so that she was flung by the waves of violent ecstasy into yet another dimension. Simultaneously she shuddered at the raw, masculine force of his release—a sense of taking and being taken, of meeting and matching, of complete union.
When it was over, when the last delicious sensation had died away to utter satiation, Rowan began to shiver. Their wild mating had taken something from her; she felt as though half her soul had been riven away.
‘Don’t cry,’ Wolfe murmured. ‘It’s called the little death, but it’s not the end of the world…’
Frowning, he got to his feet and looked down at her, then picked her up and carried her through the apartment and into a large bedroom.
‘I don’t know why I’m doing this,’ she wept, keeping her eyes closed against the light. ‘I never cry.’
‘It will wait until morning,’ he told her in a sombre voice, bending to pull back the covers on an enormous bed and slide her between them.
For a moment she thought he was going to leave her, but although he paused it was only for a moment before he joined her.
‘Go to sleep,’ he said, the abrasive texture of his voice very pronounced, and pulled her against him.
She should go back to Bobo’s, she thought, but his warmth tempted her so that she went gratefully, lying half across him, her head tucked into his shoulder. His arm was warm and heavy around her, promising protection and support in an offer she couldn’t accept.
Soon she’d get up and leave him…
Soon she’d suffer the fate of all who taste forbidden fruit—exile into a bitter kingdom of emptiness where nothing would ever be the same again. But not just yet.
He smoothed back a lock of hair from her face. ‘It was the first time for you?’
Very slightly she nodded.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he asked.
‘No.’
Silence, during which her tears dwindled and evaporated and the racing of his heart beneath her ear declined to an even, solid rhythm.
Outside it had begun to rain; she could hear the drops hissing against the window.
Dreamily she said, ‘I didn’t know it would be like that.’
‘It usually isn’t.’ His voice hardened. ‘You’re the first virgin I’ve made love to, but it’s not usually as…’
‘Earth-shattering?’ she supplied when he paused.
His chest lifted; surprised, she looked up and realised he was laughing silently, his half-closed eyes green with mockery. And something else, something she recognised as bleak acceptance.
‘Rowan,’ he said. ‘Rowan Corbett. Did you know that Corbett means raven?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘It’s an omened bird. It does seem appropriate with that black hair.’ He pulled a strand down and curled it around her breast. The light, soft touches of his fingers on her sensitised skin trailed fire.
Coolly, deliberately he said, ‘You have an elemental power.’ His tone was distant, almost impersonal, yet a molten note ran beneath the unhurried words, and there was nothing detached about the way he was caressing her. ‘When I look at you I see the pagan goddesses of Minoa with their bare breasts and ringlets and flounced skirts presiding in some ancient rite over an adoring, awe-struck congregation.’
‘I’m perfectly ordinary,’ she said, stumbling over the words and closing her eyes against the oddly stirring juxtaposition of his tanned hand playing with her black hair against the creamy pallor of her breasts.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said in an abstracted tone, ‘and I don’t think you believe that either.’
Silken curls whispered over her skin, setting her tingling. Languorous heat spread from the pit of her stomach, following secret paths as he arranged her hair across her breast and his chest. Then he bent his head and kissed her breast through the sable mass.
‘No, not yet. You need time to recover,’ he said, when eventually her wordless murmur and the slow, erotic movements of hips and legs signified her surrender.
Instead he showed her other ways in which she could be pleasured, until she cried out and sobbed, and again rode the whirlwind of her release.
It was exquisite, but it was not the same. The ferocious intensity, the driven desire was no longer present. Perhaps he too needed to reach a climax for her to feel it.
She said, ‘What about you?’ and then blushed for the crassness of her words.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said. ‘Go to sleep now.’
And such was the magic of his deep voice that she slid into an unconsciousness free of any dreams.
Frowning, Wolfe looked down at her beautiful face with night-accustomed eyes, a swift kick of desire hardening his big body when his gaze roved the sensuous mouth, still slightly swollen from his kisses. Why had she let him
make love to her? Had seeing his mother in the foyer tipped her so far off balance she’d sought comfort wherever she could?
It didn’t seem likely for such a determined virgin, yet in his arms she’d loved him with a heart-shattering combination of earthy sensuality and innocence that had temporarily banished everything but the need to possess her.
She didn’t know who he was. And, thank God, his mother hadn’t seen her. Her call to ask him to lunch the following day had stiffened his resolution to do whatever was needed to find out what had happened to his half-brother.
Why the hell hadn’t Rowan made love with Tony?
The answer slid like a stiletto into his mind. To keep him dangling, of course. Until Rowan, Tony had probably never had a woman refuse him; one who did would have his appetite with the powerful charm of novelty, of challenge.
Innocent or not, she was a worthy opponent, he thought grimly. She’d read Tony like a book, and she’d made a pretty good stab at understanding Tony’s brother too, probably guessing that he’d find coyness and virginal qualms irritating.
Wolfe listened to the soft sigh of her breathing, berating himself for not using the time better. He might have been able to coax the truth from her after they’d made love. He hadn’t even thought of it. Angered by his weakness, he eased her back onto her pillow, hardening his heart when she made a soft noise of protest and turned to him.
He needed space. And he needed to think with his usual clarity, not with a brain clouded by the fumes of sex and an unappeased, gripping hunger that still prowled through his body.
So what did she plan next? An affair involving the skilful transfer of a considerable sum of money from his pocket to hers?
Wolfe gave a slow, tigerish smile as his body tightened. He’d have considerable—and dangerous—pleasure seeing that she earned it.
The smile vanished in a flash of chagrin. Of course it was impossible, even though it was probably the easiest way of finding out exactly what had happened six years previously, when Tony had gone to her father’s house to ask for her hand in marriage and died there, shot through the heart by her father’s target pistol.
He could still woo her, win her confidence, and eventually persuade her into telling him the truth.
Yet there was always the possibility that she knew he was Tony’s half-brother, that her reaction to his mother’s presence in the foyer tonight had been more calculated than involuntary.
Perhaps she hoped to dazzle him into calling his mother off? It would certainly explain her capitulation, her enthusiastic, heart-shaking passion. If so, she’d learn that he wasn’t as easily manipulated as his brother.
CHAPTER FOUR
ROWAN woke to a gentle rise and fall beneath her cheek, to heat, to the regular sound of someone breathing. To darkness.
Freezing, she searched through the tumbled fragments of thought in her brain, struggling to recall where she was, and what—
Wolfe. Wolfe Talamantes.
The full enormity of what she’d done hit her with enough impact to stop her heart. Last night, freely and without shame, she’d made love to a man she’d only met a few hours before—a man even richer and infinitely more charismatic than Tony.
At least he’d used protection, she thought grimly, listening to the steady beat of his heart against her cheek.
One glass of champagne was no excuse. Neither was the shock of seeing Mrs Simpson in the foyer. The truth was she’d wanted Wolfe from the moment she’d met his warlock’s eyes, and because it had been an evening out of time, out of her life, she’d snatched the opportunity when it arose.
But that was last night, and although she felt warm and oddly secure in his bed, right now she had to get the hell out of there; staying would be courting heartbreak.
It would be very easy to fall fathoms deep in love with Wolfe Talamantes, and she had only to remember Bobo’s hissed information about him to know that they had nothing in common beyond an instant and apparently mindless lust. Apart from the terrifying amount of money and power he controlled, he wouldn’t marry a woman who was never so happy as when she was elbow-deep in clay.
And she didn’t want an affair; with bitter irony, she realised that she could become very possessive of Wolfe. No, not as possessive as Tony had been, but enough to humiliate.
Time to get out, she told herself, bracing for a swift, noiseless departure.
Wolfe woke—silently and smoothly—before she had time to do more than react with a jolt of stupid panic. She thought fuzzily that she could even discern the moment that swift brain realised she was there. He knew she was awake too, because he said her name.
‘Yes,’ she answered thinly, pulling herself free of his arms to scramble across to her side of the bed, cringing at her nakedness.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded in a rasping, sexy voice.
‘I’m going,’ she said stonily. But her calm deserted her when he began to move. ‘No—no, you don’t need to get up,’ she gabbled. ‘I’ll get dressed—’ She groped around for her clothes, remembering too late that they were still in the sitting room. Desperately she finished, ‘And then I’ll ring a taxi.’
But she couldn’t move, because she was going to have to walk nude out of the room. Why worry? some sadistic part of her brain taunted. He’s seen and touched and kissed every inch of your skin…
At least he didn’t turn on the light.
He didn’t try to persuade her to stay, either. ‘I’ll take you home,’ he said evenly.
‘You don’t have to—’
‘I’ll take you home,’ he repeated, flinging back the bedclothes.
Rowan fled.
By the time Wolfe appeared in the sitting room she had pulled on her clothes, including his T-shirt, and was looking despairingly for her evening bag with its comb.
‘On the floor beside the sofa,’ he told her curtly.
She pounced on it and turned her back as she opened it. Her skin told her when Wolfe left the room. Wincing, but ruthless, she dragged the comb through her tangled hair, wrenching out the last knot when he returned, this time carrying a plastic bag.
‘The wet clothes,’ he said neutrally.
Yet she knew he was furious—not with a swift flash-fire that would soon be over, but with a deep, burning anger.
With as much formality as she could produce, she said, ‘Thank you.’
In a way his lack of response made it easier. Silently they rode down the lift into the basement car park, silently they got into his car, and after she’d given him Bobo’s address they drove without speaking through streets wet with spring rain, Rowan clutching the plastic bag tensely.
‘Do you have a key?’ he asked as the big car drew up quietly outside the block of apartments.
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘We need to talk,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’ll call around tomorrow afternoon.’
‘I—there’s no need to—’
‘Rowan, either we talk tomorrow or I take you back home and we talk now,’ he said, his pleasant tone not hiding the threat behind the words.
‘I’m not going back with you now,’ she flashed. ‘All right, I’ll be here tomorrow.’
He came with her up to the door, said a courteous goodnight, and left once she’d let herself inside.
That was when her heart began to beat again, her breath to fill her lungs. Suddenly weak, she sagged against the wall a moment before stiffening her spine and tiptoeing through the apartment.
In the tiny second room that doubled as guest room and Bobo’s office, she lay in the bed and stared at the ceiling until night paled into dawn.
Why had he been so angry? Because he’d lost some part of that formidable control when they made love?
Because they’d made love? That she could understand. It had been crazy—so out of character for her she couldn’t believe she’d behaved with such abandon. Although it had been the most transcendental experience of her life, she’d expected her first experience to be with someone
she trusted, not someone she’d fallen instantly in lust with—a man she didn’t even know.
And she suspected that Wolfe didn’t normally lose it as completely as he had last night. Thoughts buzzing fruitlessly around her tired brain, she eventually slipped into a troubled sleep.
‘All right,’ Bobo said, whirling around as Rowan walked into the kitchen the next morning, ‘tell me—’ She broke into a little crow of laughter. ‘No, you don’t need to tell me—I can see what kept you out until three o’clock. Is he as good as the rumours say he is?’
Rowan managed a weak smile. ‘I don’t kiss and tell.’
‘Sit down, sit down—you need some caffeine.’ Bobo poured coffee and brought it across, her eyes snapping with interest. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘And don’t tell me he’s lousy, because I won’t believe it. No one could give off sparks like Wolfe Talamantes and be a loser in bed.’
Rowan drank some of the coffee and managed to summon a smile. ‘All right, I won’t tell you,’ she said.
Bobo frowned, easing herself into the other chair at the tiny table. ‘Feeling bad?’ she asked with concern.
After gulping more coffee, Rowan gave in to the temptation to confide. ‘I was stupid. I mean—making love with someone I’d never seen before! Crazy.’
‘Why? If you both enjoyed it, what’s the problem?’ Bobo sounded honestly bewildered. ‘You did make sure he used protection?’
Rowan flushed, but said, ‘I wasn’t that far gone.’
Nodding, her much more sophisticated mentor said, ‘Good. So I suppose this morning-after angst is a hangover from your strait-laced dad. OK, listen to big sister, here—it’s time you grew up and joined the twenty-first century. Trust me, it’s no big deal. You’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs, et cetera, and some of them you’re going to enjoy kissing. I’d really enjoy kissing Wolfe Talamantes myself, no matter where it was going, but one look at you and he didn’t even see me.’ She said it without rancour. ‘Don’t go all prissy on him now.’
‘I doubt if I’ll see him again after today,’ Rowan said wearily.
