by Jayne Castle
"Donna is my cousin,"-she told him shortly, refusing to volunteer anything else.
He nodded. "Why is it necessary for Donna to hide? Has Radburn threatened her?"
A corner of Kendra's mouth lifted in disgust. "You saw that little weasel he sent after me. What do you think?"
"Why doesn't she go to the police?" he asked reasonably.
"There's . . . someone else involved." The words came slowly. "Who?"
"Donna has a son. If Austin Radburn gets his hands on the boy, he can force Donna to return. She's got custody, but that wouldn't mean much if Austin managed to get
hold of Jason. He could make Donna do just about anything with that sort of leverage."
"Like come back to him and bring her inheritance with her?" Case hazarded grimly.
"Exactly." She lifted her head, eyeing him narrowly. "And that, in a nutshell, is that. End of story. As you can see, it really has nothing to do with you. May I go now?"
"In the morning," he told her absently, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.
"Case, I don't want to stay."
"I make you nervous?" His mouth twisted in a crooked imitation of a smile. "Frankly, yes."
"You have nothing to fear," he soothed, his voice dropping to a deeper, warming note that made her even more tense. "You're safe here."
She shut her eyes in a small, frustrated movement, and then gave him a direct look. "I don't feel safe here."
"You're afraid I'll force myself on you?" he asked softly.
She blinked, startled. "Of course not," she told him quickly.
He hesitated, and then said probingly, "No . . . you're not physically afraid of me, are you? You weren't afraid of Phelps tonight, either. Merely concerned that you might have seriously hurt him. You're one very self-confident woman, Kendra Loring. As I told you before, you intrigue me."
"Is your pet wolf still guarding the door?" she inquired acidly, ignoring his words.
"All night long," he assured her gently. "You may as well relax. You're not going anywhere."
"I've satisfied your curiosity," she reminded him pointedly.
"But I'm not satisfied you'll be safe tonight if I send you
out into the streets. I'm going to keep you here and then see you safely on the plane in the morning." "Against my wishes?"
"It needn't be that way," he said meaningfully.
Kendra picked up the sexual innuendo and once again considered that approach. Slowly, invitingly, she smiled at him.
"Meaning?"
"You know what I mean," he said calmly. But she could almost feel the sensual heat in his gaze. If Case were not around, Wolf could be handled, her agile mind reflected. The big man couldn't watch all the exits. She could mingle with the crowd in the casino, leave with a large group . . .
"Are you thinking of making me more resigned to my— er—fate?" she taunted.
"Is this how you lured poor Phelps to his doom this evening?" Case asked, ending with a note of soft male laughter. "Did you smile at him like that and invite him into your room, then bop him on the head?"
"Not quite. He didn't wait for an invitation, you see."
"Unlike me?"
"Are you waiting for one?"
"Perhaps," he growled seductively. He got to his feet, setting down his brandy and coming to stand in front of her.
She sat very still, a faint smile on her lips as he drank in the sight of her lounging on his sofa. The masculine anticipation in the dark gaze was doing funny things to her insides, but she summoned up all her will to ignore the effects. What happened next would have to be handled with a clear head, or it could end in disaster.
"Are you issuing the invitation, Kendra?" he rasped huskily, taking her hand and lifting her lightly to her feet beside him.
She felt the tension of male desire in him, knew beyond
a doubt that he wanted her. A man was weak when he was in the throes of sexual desire, she told herself.
Her lashes fluttered down onto her cheek, and she lifted her face for his kiss.
"I thought you might," he congratulated himself hoarsely. "You wanted me eariier this evening, didn't you?" He lowered his head slowly, his thumb probing the edge of her slightly parted lips with a sensuousness that seeped into her bloodstream. He didn't wait for a verbal answer. "As badly as I wanted you, I wonder?"
She let him take her lips, her arms sliding around his neck as he fastened his mouth on hers with controlled passion. There was no denying his expertise, she thought distantly.
But she had kissed other men who had definite expertise. Case Garrett's embrace was different, more direct somehow. More electric.
She tried to put the surprising depth of her own reaction aside and concentrate on arousing him. She needed to get him well beyond this point of control. He wanted her, but he had his emotions on a tight leash. She needed him to be weakened with desire, not merely attracted to her.
"We're going to be very good together, Kendra Loring," he grated against her mouth, and then his hands were going around her, pulling her close. "I knew that the moment I saw you this evening."
"Did you?" she breathed, aware of her quickening pulse and striving to conquer it. Surely there was no possibility of her losing her self-control! Not with this man!
"Ummm." He began to shower soft, feathery kisses along her cheek while his fingers spread against her slender back. "I had to follow you back to that hotel. I couldn't just let you walk out of my life having received only a few kisses. Not when I knew there could be so much more between us!"
She heard the deepening tone of his voice and smiled to
herself. Her fingertips toyed with the blackness of his hair, and she temporarily gave in to the curiously light-headed sensation his embrace was creating. Soon she would be able to act, but in the meantime . . . "Oh . . . !"
She heard the low, half-stifled moan and was startled to realize it had come from her own throat. Involuntarily her hands tightened on the muscles of his shoulders, and her body arched willingly beneath the pressure of his hands.
Case gave a deep exclamation of spiraling desire and satisfaction at her response. His fingers slid down to her hips, holding her more tightly against him. Kendra sucked in her breath, realizing he wanted her to be totally aware of his need. She felt the hardness in him and trembled when he traced the line of her spine up to the sensitive nape of her neck.
"Case?" His name was a gentle, beseeching sound, and in that moment Kendra could not have said whether the feminine plea was deliberate or instinctive on her part.
He smiled against her cheek, his fingers gliding inside the collar of her dress. Then she shivered again as his warm tongue circled the perimeter of her ear and then stabbed excitingly inside.
When he felt her response his hands went to her hair, prying at the gold clip with rising urgency.
"My God! A man could get lost in this stuff," he muttered as the multicolored brown mass tumbled to her waist. He twined his hands in it, lifting the sweet-smelling hair and burying his face in it for a long, sensuous moment.
Kendra gasped, struggling to maintain her grip on real-ity and her own plans. It was astonishing how this man's growing desire struck a resonant chord deep in her body. It had never been quite like this with anyone else. For the first time in two years she began wondering if her needs bad returned to normal after the trauma. For the past two
years she had been perfectly content with a little mild affection, a few kisses . . .
But tonight there was a strange curiosity coursing along her nerve endings. It tempted her in a way that went beyond the normal level of desire she had known before the incident two years ago. This man was different, her body declared with absolute conviction. This man was right!
No, she told herself wildly, fighting the battle she knew she must win. This man was not right. She needed to get away from him, perhaps more than ever now. Too much was at stake. . . .
"You have the nicest hands," he rasped, turning his head to touch
his tongue to the inside of her wrist. "Light, gentle, exquisite. I like the feel of them on me."
"Do you, Case?" she managed breathlessly, striving to keep her wits about her as the rush hit her.
"Yes," he told her huskily. "Touch me some more, little mystery lady. Forget about the past and the future and just touch me again and again tonight!"
Her hands slid down his jacket front, and she eased it off his broad shoulders, telling herself that she was only putting on an act, doing what was necessary to get herself safely away from him.
The elegantly tailored coat fell unheeded to the floor, and she lifted trembling fingers to the black bow tie, pulling it free. It followed the coat, and she felt his pleasure.
And then she felt something else—the feel of his hands on her zipper. The action penetrated her swimming thoughts, producing a warning. She would not be able to flee, naked, into the night, she reminded herself grimly. She must do what had to be done before he had undressed her!
"Wait," she whispered softly, lightly capturing his hands and pulling them around in front of her so that she could drop tiny kisses on his fingers. "Wait a little while."
"Why?" he asked deeply, spreading his fingertips out to touch her face as she caressed them. "Why must I wait? We both know what we want."
"Wouldn't you—wouldn't you like to have me finish what I've started first?" she suggested, her breath catching in her throat as she lifted her eyes to meet the full impact of his sensual look.
There was a new kind of hardness in his face, she thought distractedly. A taut, tense expression of masculine need. The kind of need that would make him unable to think of anything else except getting her into bed. She was sure of it.
"You want to finish undressing me before I return the favor?" he smiled whimsically.
"Do you mind?"
"No," he murmured, taking her hand and leading her toward the bedroom. "I have no objections whatsoever. You're an amazing woman, do you know that? I'm glad you're not going to insist on being coy. I'm grateful you're capable of being honest about what you want."
She found herself leaning heavily against his side, his arm wrapped around her waist as he led her down the hall.
"What about you, Case? Do you want me?"
"More than you can possibly guess," he confessed a little grimly as he stopped beside the bed.
"It's—it's easy for a man to want a woman on sight, isn't it?" she whispered, her shaking fingers going to the buttons of his shirt.
"Yes," he admitted. "But this is different. You're different. ..." He kissed her ear, her throat, the back of her neck, as she tugged at his shirt.
"I don't believe that," she told him on a thread of sound. "I think you've done this a thousand times."
"Gone to bed with a woman so soon after meeting her? No, Kendra, I haven't done it a thousand times. What
about you? Do you always know what you want so quickly?"
She slid his shirt off him, and her fingers went at once to the curling hair that covered his chest. He was built like the jungle cat he resembled, she thought fleetingly. Lean, graceful, hard.
"No," she said, a horrifying nervousness assailing her as the final seconds closed in on her. She would have to act quickly, and she had never felt less coordinated or less ready for that action. Her body was threatening to betray her, and part of her problem was her mind's inability to accept the betrayal. He was only another man. A man she could handle. What was the matter with her?
"No? There is no man waiting for you back in San Francisco?" he persisted heavily as she traced the outline of his male nipples. She felt him catch his breath and knew he was going rapidly beyond the point of control. It was all she could do to control herself now. She had to make her move.
"If I said there was, would you change your mind about tonight?" she asked thickly.
He hesitated, and then groaned his answer in an implacable, uncompromising whisper.
"Nothing could make me change my mind about tonight. If there is another man, the only thing I can think about right now is making you forget him!"
Kendra took hold of herself, sensing the moment was at hand. In another few seconds he would be reaching out for her, pulling her down onto the white quilt, and then she would be lost. She knew that with sudden, brilliant clarity, and the knowledge both attracted and repelled.
She stepped gracefully, easily out of reach, flashing a smile of invitation.
"Kendra?" Sensual menace flickered in his dark gaze, and then he was reaching for her, his hand seeking her to draw her close again.
God! She would have to be fast. The fall would have to stun him long enough to give her sufficient time to escape.
She caught at his extended hand, forcing herself to let the trained reactions of her body take over. She must see him as attacker, not lover!
It was going to be easy, she thought with a surge of charged energy. He was expecting nothing like this. He was off-balance and consumed with desire. If ever a man was vulnerable . . .
When his hand descended she stepped back slightly and felt him adjust automatically to her slight change in balance. Once again she stepped back, sliding her left foot in an arc to the rear. She shifted her weight, feeling him follow the gentle lead until he was caught by her ankle. In a split second she moved, pulling his arm in an upward circular motion with her right hand and using her left hand in a downward circular motion. The throw was completed by bringing him over her foot, and she concluded it perfectly, her left knee properly bent, her waist straight and firm.
As soon as he hit the rug she knew she had made a mistake. He didn't fall like a dead weight. He wasn't stunned by the impact. He landed with the trained reflexes she would have expected from a master such as her instructor!
There was barely time to assimilate the error before his hand struck out to catch her ankle. Shocked, Kendra tried to fight free, wanting to kick at him but unable to do so. Frantically she tried to remember her instruction, but she had never considered this possibility. She had expected to have all the advantages of surprise.
Belatedly she began to recall some of the art, but everything was happening much too fast. With a savage yank she was jerked off her feet. Kendra managed to break her fall in the proper manner but was unable to recover in time to retaliate.
Case was on her then, his face a cold mask of fury and desire. A deadly combination that she felt the force of as if the wind had been knocked out of her. And then she began fighting, calling on everything she had learned in the past two years.
It was a silent, bitter, savage battle, and she was losing it. Worse, every attack or defense she used was angering Case further. But it was not a white-hot, burning anger that might have left him vulnerable. Case was all icy, controlled wrath.
Beneath the impact of his superior skill, Kendra felt herself succumbing to panic. She began to flail at him in useless feminine ways, using her nails on his face until he caught her hands and anchored them. She kicked at his legs but missed the target. She writhed and twisted, as he pinned her inevitably into the white carpet, exhausting herself with panic and fear.
Neither of them said a word during the struggle, and it was somehow all the more violent for being carried out in silence. It ended as she had known it would end the moment she realized she had taken on more than she could handle.
Helpless, damp with perspiration and fear, the red silk dress torn, she finally went still beneath Case's weight. Wide-eyed, she watched his taut face, seeing no possibility of mercy in the roughly hewn features.
She lay panting, unable to move, waiting for him to hurt her. It was all she could do not to cry out in fear and pain. Her mind was flashing wildly, horribly back to that night two years ago when she had once before been at the mercy of a man. She wanted to scream, cry, plead. And in her terror, none of those was possible. She could only lie there, glaring her helpless hatred up at a stone-faced, cold man who now wanted only vengeance.
"You little cheat!" he snarled. "What th
e hell were you
trying to pull? Or do you go around doing this to men all the time?"
In the utter shock of the moment, Kendra couldn't even manage to speak. She waited mutely for what would come next, summoning all the shattered remains of her poor strength in an effort not to cry. If she could deny him nothing else, she could deny him that satisfaction. Men like this wanted to see women broken and crying.
"Answer me, damn you!" he blazed, his fingers digging into her arms as he held her immobile. "How many times have you done this sort of thing? How many men have fallen for it? Is that really what happened to Phelps this evening? My God! I was only joking earlier when I asked if you'd lured him into your room and then hit him on the head! But that's probably exactly what happened! What were you going to do? Roll him for his wallet?"
"No!" The single word was torn from her in protest. She shut her eyes against the fury in him.
"If it's money you want, you can damn well earn it! But don't think you're going to cheat me out of what you were promising a few minutes ago! I always get what I pay for!"
She was shaking now as she realized there was no hope of reasoning with him. How could she have been so stupid? Why hadn't she even thought about the risks of failure? Why in heaven's name had she been so crazily self-confident? But Phelps had been so easy to deal with! Who would have guessed Case Garrett wouldn't be as simple to handle, especially with his energies directed only toward getting her into bed?
But now that single-minded determination had taken on the aura of primitive male violence and revenge. The sophisticated passion he had been employing only a short time ago was gone, wiped out as if it had never existed.
Kendra's teeth sank into her lower lip, drawing blood, and her nails curled savagely into her palms as she felt his hand on her dress. The peculiar, exotic sound made by silk
when it is torn vibrated through the room as the fabric was ripped from her in a quick, fierce motion.
She felt him hurl his few remaining garments into a corner without weakening the painful hold he had on her. An instant later they were both lying naked on the thick white carpet.
