“Rabbit,” he leaned close to whisper in her ear.
“Wonderful idea, Luke. We’ll add it to the stew pot.”
“That wasn’t what I meant and you know it.” He toyed with the end of her braid. “Where did the ribbon come from, Domini?”
“It’s just a ribbon.”
“Don’t get so tightly laced. It was just a question. Anyhow, I know where it came from.” He ran one finger up her rigid spine, from her waist to the bare skin of her neck. “Such a scared little rabbit. You can’t even look at me. And the only thing that’s stewing around here is my—”
“Luke, truce. Please.” He was so wrong, but she was not going to admit it. The past hour of being with him was teaching her more about hunger that had nothing to do with the wild foodstuffs they had gathered. He had told her the lake would be near freezing. Domini knew she would welcome the cold. Something had to relieve the heat that stirred inside. Every word that he spoke was a brush over her skin. Hunger. She could name its levels, and it was more than she wanted to know.
“To have a truce we need to come to terms. What are you offering?”
Domini glanced down at the shirt she held. “I’ll wash your clothes with mine.”
“Not good enough.”
She felt the light caress of his finger tracing the length of her spine again. This time she couldn’t stop him from feeling the tremor that rose to her skin.
“What do you want from me, Luke?”
“You. I want you.”
She shied away from him. “That’s not good enough.” Her sleeve caught on a bramble and Domini pulled it free, only to stumble back against a hollow tree trunk. Two birds flew up, their feathers a beautiful powdery blue in the sunlight.
He watched the quick way she shaded her eyes to keep the small birds in sight and knew, before she could ask, that she’d want to know what they were. His body was whispering other things he could teach her, things that would stop the need that raked his skin like steel spurs.
“They’re mountain bluebirds.”
“Do the Indians have a legend about them, too?”
“About all the birds and how they got their colors.”
Domini watched the birds until they were out of sight. There was nothing but the soft clouds to look at in the bright blue sky. Luke wasn’t going to say any more until she looked at him.
Reluctantly she did. There was no softness or comfort in his dark eyes. But when she opened her mouth to speak, Luke placed two fingers against her lips.
“I’ll tell you the legend if you promise to stop shying away from me. Deal?”
Domini nodded, wishing he would take his fingers from her lips before she gave in to the temptation to taste his skin. Her gaze fell to the pulse beating in the hollow of his throat, then lower to his broad shoulders. A blue neckerchief had replaced her bandage on his upper arm.
Seeing the direction of her gaze, Luke lifted his fingers from her mouth after he traced the bottom curve of her lip. “I changed it last night. It’s healing just fine. Don’t worry about it. And since we have a deal, I’ll tell you while we pick the berries.”
She worked beside him as he talked, trying hard not to shy away every time their hands reached for the same ripe berries, or the bare skin of his arm brushed against her sleeve. She had made a promise and was finding it a most difficult one to keep. Tension coiled around her. She couldn’t stop thinking about the dark mat of hair that formed a diamond-shaped wedge on his chest. Could it be as soft as it looked? Don’t think about it. This is surely the devil’s temptation testing you.
No matter how many she repeated it, she couldn’t dismiss the thought. The devil’s snare couldn’t catch her unless she was first caught by the devil’s bait. No one had warned her that her own feelings would be part of the trap.
“So there you have it, the Great Spirit in despair because the trees lost their colorful leaves each fall. Since there were no birds, he turned the leaves into them. The russet oak leaves became robins, the yellow aspen leaves goldfinches. And so on. But the bluebird had no color.”
Holding open the cloth shirt sack for his larger handful of berries, Domini asked, “How could he be called a bluebird without any color?”
“Since I didn’t make up the story, I don’t know. But the bird was disappointed and flew to heaven to complain. Bits of the blue rubbed off on him when he blundered into the curtain of the sky, and that’s how he got his color.”
“It’s a pretty story. I wish I could fly to heaven and have the color of my skin changed. My skin, my hair … how silly of me to go on.”
“Why?”
She looked up, startled. “You can see for yourself that I’m too dark. Whites take me for a half-breed because of my eyes, and in a way it’s true. My father was Irish and my mother mestizo. The meld of French, Spanish, and Indian was so tangled in her family that no one knew its lines for sure.”
He had at first thought her a breed. But it hadn’t mattered then and didn’t now. He reached out to cup the back of her head, intending to show her how much her golden skin and black silk hair pleased him. The seductive curve of her lips sent a shaft of hunger through him that was almost painful. It wasn’t the sudden wariness in her eyes that stopped him, but his own unruly reaction to her. Luke dropped his hand.
“Take these back to camp.” He picked up her filled shawl, handed it over, then looked out toward the open meadow. “Make sure you stay close to the edge of the woods.”
“Why? Aren’t you coming back with me?”
“Is that what you want, Domini?”
Her breath caught. He was asking for more than accompanying her back to camp. She sensed it, just as she sensed the sudden tension riding him.
“Luke, please—”
“I’d like to, honey. You just keep saying the wrong words. Get back to camp, Domini.”
His voice held the cutting edge of a chilling wind. Domini withdrew at the sudden change in him.
“Are you going deaf? Get back to camp now, or there’ll be blazing hell to pay.”
He waited until she was draped in shadow and sunlight at the edge of the woods. “Domini, if you’d come to me asking to change anything about you, I’d refuse.”
She stilled, wary as a spooked fawn, and turned to him. Luke rubbed the back of his neck, wondering why the hell he didn’t just let her go. But he might as well finish it.
“Maybe one thing. Yeah, there’s one I’d change.”
“Only one?” she asked in a husky, breathless voice.
“Yeah. Just one. I’d make sure you forgot how to say no.”
Chapter 10
Luke stayed away as long as he could. The sound of her humming drew him back, for he heard her voice in the rush of the water, the sweet sighing wind, even the quiet that lay over this small corner of wild land. He couldn’t explain the feeling, even to himself, or maybe he didn’t want to examine it too closely, but Domini made him feel the same emotions he’d had the first time he had found this haven.
But you weren’t alone…
And I ain’t alone now. He stepped into the clearing, holding a piece of honeycomb where she could see it.
“I was getting worried. You were gone so long.” She came to her feet slowly, studying his face, unsure of his mood. Spying the treat he held, she hurried to him.
“Honey? Did you get stung?”
“A little. I’ve already packed mud on them. But we’ve got something to sweeten those tart berries.”
He stood for her touching the places where the mud had already caked and dried on his forearm. His breath hissed in as though he’d been burned.
“Stop, Domini. Stop worrying. The hive is older than me. Those bees should be used to having me steal their honey.”
“You want them to be grateful that you stole from them?”
“When the thievin’ doesn’t hurt anyone, sure.”
As far as she could see to satisfy herself,
there weren’t any stingers left. But she couldn’t stop touching the raised welts.
“I once saw a man die from bee stings. His face and arm nearly doubled in size and he couldn’t breathe—”
“There’s nothing wrong with my breathing. Leastways there wasn’t until you started touching me.”
She whipped her hand down to her side, clutching her gown as if she’d been the one stung. Domini had to back off. She wasn’t foolish enough to provoke him when that cutting edge clipped every word. She glanced over her shoulder at where she had been working.
“I found that flat slab of rock to use for a table. There’s no water left in the canteens. I used every bit to wash the roots and berries. You told me not to leave camp—”
“So I did. And I promised you a bath, too.”
“Yes. You did.” She made herself look up at him. “It’s still all right, isn’t it?”
“Tear off a piece of bark from that big deadfall so I can set this comb down.” He walked closer to the fire and saw her things neatly laid out on top of her carpet bag to one side. He grinned seeing the bar of soap and cloth.
“Little thief. You took those from the hotel.”
Ripping off the bark, Domini handed it over to him. “You just stole honey. Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”
“I’ve always had the choice of buyin’ or takin’ what I want, Domini. Don’t matter much which way it goes. But you, stealing’s got to matter unless those vows you intended to take were lies. Bet you prayed for forgiveness, didn’t you?”
She turned away, frightened that he could read her so well.
“Makes a man wonder what kind a nun you’ll make. Liar and thief—”
“I’ll make a very good one, Luke. I will have the compassion not to condemn a hungry child for stealing.”
Luke grinned, but it never reached his eyes, which raked her from head to toe and made a slower perusal back to her face.
“You’re not a child anymore, Domini. And soap ain’t food.”
He saw the shudder that went through her, and once more he wondered how much came from fear and how much from the wild, hidden sensuality that was awake and growing. He shifted his stance to ease rapidly hardening flesh, but the move was useless. He wasn’t going to get rid of this ache alone.
Luke set aside the bark and lifted his hand to his lips to lick the honey that had dripped from the comb to his skin.
Domini’s lips parted, her breath caught, held, then rushed out.
He looked down at the golden drops. His own breathing matched her quickened cadence. Luke could no more help it than he could stop watching her staring at his hand. His gaze lay in wait to snare hers when she finally looked up at him.
A knowing smile curled his lips. Fire licked his loins just as his tongue licked up the first drop. “Sweeter than I’ve ever tasted it. Warm, too.” Like her skin, like her lips. He thought of tastes that were sweeter, hotter, and smooth as silk to his tongue. Tastes soft enough to ease a man’s pain.
He dismissed the thought as he had the first time the generous shape of her mouth brought it forth. Just as he dismissed the nagging question of why he had wanted to kiss her.
Kissing was an intimacy that he had never offered another woman.
He caught up another drop, savoring the small burst of sweetness, cool in the heat of his mouth. And he savored her unconscious move to moisten the center of her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue. Shadows played over the strong, striking features of her face. Features that he knew he would never tire of watching. Her eyes widened with sensual awareness. He couldn’t look away from them as he sought one more taste of honey.
But he wanted to. He wanted to know what changes were happening to her body hidden beneath her clothes. If she stopped staring at his mouth and dropped her gaze, Domini would know exactly what he was thinking, what he was feeling.
He was hard as a whetstone, fighting need sharp as a blade honed on its edge.
A woman’s arousal was hidden beyond the flush tinting her skin and the slight flare of her nostrils that mimicked his own. And he had to look. Had to know.
His gaze slid down the lifted curve of her chin past the graceful length of her neck. He could see the pulse beat in the hollow, beat as wildly as his own, and measured the quick rise and fall of her breasts. He looked lower to find nipples beaded tight beneath the thin cloth. In the silence of his mind he cursed the arousal that notched up to a level near pain.
As slowly as he began, his gaze returned to target her eyes again. He held out his hand to her.
“Want some? Don’t bother to deny it. I can see the hunger in you. I’m not a selfish man, Domini. I’m all for sharing anything you want, anyway you want it.”
“Luke, please…”
“I’m tryin’ like hell’s on fire, honey. Just tell me what you want.”
Domini closed her eyes. It was the only way she could think to hide from the blazing intensity of his. A wild spiral rose inside her, as shocking and dizzying as the first time she had felt it. Emotions tangled, crashing and separating only to collide again. Each sensation was sharp and exquisite and painful. Devil’s snare. Devil’s bait. A test of will, of conviction. Her hands curled so tightly around the cloth of her gown that she could feel them go numb.
He had called her a thief. Luke was right. She had stolen in the past. But what he asked her for now was a thievery of her soul. He didn’t love her. He wanted her. Like the sweet honey he had licked from his hand, she would satisfy a momentary craving.
And you? Won’t you satisfy the same?
Se rindió. Give in.
Válgame Dios! Heaven help me, I want to.
“Domini, a man’ll wait so long.”
“Stop it,” she whispered in a broken voice. “Stop tempting me and taunting and—”
“…teasing till you can’t think of anything else. A wild ride down the river of no return, Domini. That’s how it’ll be. And I know. When you’re ready to stop lying to yourself, you’ll know, too. Get your things. I’ll walk you down to the lake.”
Her shoulders sagged under the burden he’d placed on her. But it had to be her choice. He scooped up the piece of bark with the honey and set it in a high crook of a tree.
Clutching her things, Domini’s puzzled gaze went no farther than his hand lowering to his side.
“It might keep a bear from prowling too close and stealing my honey. Like I told you, I’m real possessive about what I claim as mine.” He stepped over to the saddles and slid his rifle from the scabbard.
“I thought you set a snare for supper.”
“I did. All nicely baited, too. I should catch something to satisfy my hunger. After you bathe, I’ll go fishing.”
“With a gun? Isn’t the one you wear as if it were welded to your hip and thigh enough?”
Holding aloft the rifle with his right hand, Luke looked at her. “You don’t call this a gun. It’s a rifle. A .44 Winchester. This,” he added, sliding his left hand down the smooth wooden butt and leather that indeed felt as if it were part of him, “is what you call a gun.”
She hadn’t wanted to follow the movement of his hand. She did and regretted it the same moment. Luke’s waistband dipped below the narrow wedge of dark hair that centered his chest, revealing lighter skin that had not been touched by the sun. A little devil teased her with the thought that the sun was the only thing that hadn’t touched his skin. She hated the image of a woman’s hands caressing … No! She wasn’t going to allow the image of cool hands—her hands—sliding open the horn buttons to discover flesh hard enough to strain glove-soft cloth.
Prayer wasn’t helping to remove wicked thoughts. Domini knew how foolish she was to hope it could. Wickedness stood temptingly arrayed before her. As Luke said, a snare nicely baited. But nicely was wrong. Too weak a description.
Domini tore her gaze away and asked him again why he need both weapons.
“Walk out w
ith me and I’ll show you.”
Holding her clean clothes, soap, and cloth in a death grip against her chest, she walked as quickly as her legs would move out into the sunlight blanketing the meadow. Despite the return of screaming muscles, she would have kept walking, but Luke’s hand coming to rest on her shoulder stopped her.
“See that slab of rock above the second fall?”
Following the rifle barrel he pointed, she saw the tilted granite slab that rose in a spray of diamond mist.
“I see it. But I still don’t understand.” A tremor underscored her voice, the same tremor that rippled from the skin beneath his hand to tighten her breasts.
“I’ll be sitting up there. It’s a good vantage point to watch the woods around the lake.”
“I thought you said we were safe here.” Domini forced herself to speak. All she could think about was an invisible line from where he would be sitting to the sparkling surface of the lake. Now, now matter how much she wanted her bath, she wished she had never mentioned it. She had assumed that he would remain in camp to give her some privacy.
Luke felt the tension gripping her body. “You could always change your mind.”
“Change my mind?” Not again. Dear God, not again. I can’t refuse … I will. I must.
“About the bath. What the hell else did you think I meant? Never mind. I know, don’t I? Like I said, the choice is yours. You want a cold water bath, it’s all yours. But I could give you one that’s warmer.”
She saw his tongue gently licking up the honey and trembled where she stood.
“Who are you more worried about, Domini? Me or yourself?”
She wished she didn’t understand what he meant, but she did. God forgive, she did too well.
“This isn’t fear that makes you quiver like a sapling in the wind. It’s me touching you, isn’t it?”
“You know exactly what it is, Luke. Why ask? Why torment me? And yes, I want a cold water bath.” I need time and space away from you.
His fingers trailed up the side of her neck. He caught the lobe of her ear between the tips of his thumb and forefinger. Very gently he applied enough pressure so she wouldn’t pull away, and rubbed the fleshy, soft skin.
Whisper My Name Page 10
