He shouldn't care. He wanted her. It shouldn't matter how she came to him, or for what reason. But it did matter. It mattered more than he cared to admit.
He laughed harshly at himself, and the laugh escaped him. "I see. You haven't been able to find anyone else, and you thought I would serve your purpose."
She was still staring at him, wide-eyed, biting her lip now. Luke felt some grim satisfaction. Even she wasn't quite as fearless as she wanted him to believe. Not so entirely unlike the others. For a moment he let her feel the force of his power and watched her react. It seemed cold comfort, even when her next words carried a stammer of distress.
"Yes." Sensitive lips trembled. "It's the only reason I'm here. It's something I have to do, and—I'll do it however I have to." Her low voice shook with emotions so tangled he could not tell which was dominant fear, determination, anger, pride. "I know you can help me."
For the first time Luke turned away, gazing out into the welcoming dark of the forest. "What do you know about me, Joey?" In the wake of her silence he circled to face her again.. "I don't hire out. I don't take city girls into the mountains, and I don't like being used."
"Neither do I." She stepped forward, abandoning the dubious security of the tree. "You'd use me the same way, for your own—gratification. I've heard all about you, Luke. Don't go lecturing me about using."
The edge in her voice challenged him, and for a long moment their gazes locked. "I can pay you, Luke. One way or another." Her voice softened, and lambent brown eyes drowned him like dark water. "It's not so much. All you have to do is take me where I need to go before the first snow falls."
Luke let his gaze drop first, curling his lip as he looked her up and down. He was not used to this strange war of emotions within himself, far less did he understand it. "What do you know about the mountains, Joey? Have you ever gone a day without food or a night without electricity?" The cold harshness of his tone was a deliberate blow. "Have you ever walked ten kilometers over rough uphill terrain and then spent an hour gathering wood for a fire? Have you ever, in your sheltered life, faced the possibility of a lonely, painful death?"
Joey froze a few steps away, her expression rigid. "Yes, I have." The gold embers in her eyes sparked into flame. "Damn it, Gévaudan, I've worked long and hard for this. I've trained and prepared, and I'm as fit as anyone could be."
She set her hands on her hips and bid him look at her, he could not have done otherwise, even now. Her body was taut with indignation, and for the first time, coldly, Luke evaluated her not as a woman he wanted, but as he would an animal for health and fitness—as he would look for fatal weakness in potential prey.
Under the grace he had admired was strength, that much was certain, there was the firmness of muscle under soft skin, the erect posture that hinted of confidence, the flush of health that extended to the aura he had sensed about her from the beginning. There was a flush to her cheeks, too, even as she held herself for his inspection, she was aware of him. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in the hiss of her indrawn breath. And he—he could not look at her without feeling a return of overwhelming desire. With an angry curse, he rejected it.
"Impossible," he snapped. He watched her jerk at the outright rejection. Had she expected otherwise—expected him to agree because she had a fit body—a body he wanted? Oh, he wanted her, he still desired her, but he found within himself a stronger compulsion. She would not win her little game, she would not be the first to dominate him.
He began to turn away, the confusion of his feelings for her had become entirely too complex. This was not what he had wanted, not what he needed. The night called to him, urged him to leave her manipulations and compelling attraction far behind. He wanted nothing more now than to escape.
The feather-light touch of her hand on his arm stopped him with the grip of a vise. He cursed himself again for being unable to shake her off, to leave her standing there, but he stayed.
"Luke, I need you." Her voice had grown soft, almost pleading. Her fingers moved against the flannel of his sleeve, and he felt them as if there were no barrier at all between. "I'm desperate. I need your help " The warmth of her body radiated against his back. "Nothing has ever been more important to me than this—nothing. Please."
The raw note of despair in her voice was like pain, so unlike what he knew of her that it almost shocked him. It almost took him out of his anger, his pride and confusion Almost.
He pulled away from her abruptly, freeing his arm from her grasping fingers "I'm sorry, Joey." The coldness of his voice mocked his words. "I can't help you. It's too bad you wasted so much of your time." She made a soft, helpless sound, but he refused to look back. "I suggest you come back with me now, if you don't want to be left out here alone."
Without further words he started back for the lodge, his strides long and heedless. The crackle of brush sounded behind him as she struggled to keep up.
"Luke, please..."
He whirled so suddenly that she stopped herself only inches from colliding with him, her face frozen in startlement. "Don't push me, Joey. Don't push me."
He knew from the slow alteration of her expression that she finally grasped what he said, that she saw the force he held in check, the savagery just under the surface. He willed her to feel it so she would never forget.
When he turned his back on her again, he hoped she did understand.
At the end of another nearly sleepless night, Joey sat in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin and contemplated utter failure.
How had things gone so wrong? She knew he'd wanted her—and she'd made doubly sure of that before attempting to strike her bargain. If only she'd had more time, more time to lead him on, make him believe he wouldn't be sacrificing anything—least of all his pride—to help her.
The morning light gave a cheerful cast to the room that seemed to mock Joey's despair. She caught the blanket in both fists and pulled as if she might tear it apart. She had moved too quickly She had been too impatient, too inept at making veiled promises she had no intention of keeping. Luke had seen through her. She'd ruined her last chance.
Joey seriously considered spending the entire day under the covers, refusing to face a world that seemed altogether hostile. She could not even face the prospect of turning to Maggie—not after what had happened. It was far too humiliating. Better to avoid people entirely, so that her defeat remained hidden from everyone but him.
In the few hours of the night when she had managed to sleep, he had been in her dream.s She could not even bar him from that last refuge.
Joey got out of bed and moved to the window. It was another of those crisp, flawless days when the sky was so blue, it almost hurt to look at it. The trees lay like a rich green carpet over the hills and valleys and mountains, up to the timberline where the peaks rose in stark, forbidding splendor. He had said there were many mysteries there few human beings had ever seen. The one mystery she needed most to solve was still beyond her reach.
With a groan of utter frustration, Joey grabbed her brush from the bureau and began to pull it through her tangled hair with punishing jerks. This room, this lodge, was too small to contain her equally tangled emotions, she knew she had to escape, to be alone and walk the woods and hills until she could walk no farther. Beyond that she refused to think.
She threw on jeans and a shirt and a light jacket, laced up her boots, and filled her water bottle in the communal bathroom down the hall. Food was the last thing on her mind, she slipped out the back way, avoiding the kitchen and dining room. It wasn't until she'd crossed into the woods that she felt some of the oppressive despondency lift.
For a long while she did nothing but wander aimlessly, making no attempt to choose one path over another, deliberately ignoring all the dictates of safety she had learned over the summer. Safety, security, caution—all those things seemed unimportant now.
She followed narrow deer trails that cut swaths through the ferns and shrubs and small trees under the canopy
of the forest, found the places where moose had bedded among the willow thickets alongside meandering streams. She discovered late-summer fruit burgeoning on thickly crowded shrubs and shared the sweet ripeness of huckleberries with forest birds. Grouse and chipmunks scurried out of her way as they gorged on the season's final bounty, jays and squirrels scolded from above, contrasting with the sweeter songs of chickadee and warbler. She watched a black bear forage from the cover of a thicket of dogwood and narrowly avoided a pointed brush with a porcupine.
Her wandering led her out of the aspen groves, quaking leaves already gold with the touch of autumn, and up into the province of Douglas fir and spruce. Here the land rose, broken by meadows with the last of their summer wildflowers, reaching up to the elevations ruled by towering lodgepole pine. And beyond that, beyond her reach, the timberline marked the highest places, where only the hardiest wildlife flourished. All but a few of the animal species of the high slopes would move to the sheltered lowlands with the coming of winter, already the migrations had begun.
Joey settled on a large rock at the edge of a meadow and watched a wedge of geese move across the sky. Their mournful cries seemed to express her feelings more clearly than any sound a human voice could make, she observed them until they disappeared over a distant mountain range, tiny motes almost lost from sight, and did not give in to the urge to cry with that same wild longing.
She sat there as the day passed and saw the goshawks and red-tails as they passed overhead in search of prey, held so still that even the deer left the sanctuary of the woods' edge to browse in the meadow. It was hard to focus on the death of her dreams when so much life surrounded her. But always, always, there was the bleakness of that unresolved loss, the memory of what she might have had, of wholeness, that might forever be just beyond her reach.
Had she not been so lost to any concern for her own safety, she might have felt surprise at the light touch on her shoulder. There was no warning, no footfall to alert her, but her heartbeat remained dull and steady as she turned to face him.
"Luke." The indifference in her voice seemed alien even to herself. She felt no anger, no humiliation—only a leaden acceptance. "I don't really want any company right now, if you don't mind."
Joey turned away before he could answer, and he moved soundlessly around the rock to crouch beside her "You're a long way from home." He let strained silence fall between them; in spite of herself, she felt her skin shudder at his nearness, an awareness that cut through the apathy that wrapped her in a protective cocoon. She didn't want it. She didn't want to feel anything, least of all about him.
"Yes I'm a very long way from home." She folded her arms against herself and stared out at the meadow without seeing it. "It seems to me that this wilderness is big enough that a person should be able to find some peace. Please—leave me alone."
She knew without any further comment from him that he had no intention of respecting her wishes. She pushed herself to her feet, muscles stiff from long sitting, and prepared to leave him there, as he had left her the night before. But he stopped her, his hand shot out and locked about her arm, holding her in place. From deep within the muffling folds of apathy anger flared, and she prepared to round on him; his voice arrested her as surely as his grip.
"You aren't alone any longer, Joey," he whispered. "Hold absolutely still and look to the north."
She looked She obeyed his command without any thought of defiance and caught her breath. At the verge of the meadow stood two vast brown shapes, magnificent and ungainly. Two bull moose, crowned by impressive racks of antlers, faced each other across a span of trampled grass. One of them bellowed, stretching its neck and shaking its head in threat. Just beyond the adversaries a cow, demure and plain, stood by to witness the competition.
Luke spoke very softly close to her ear, his warm breath caressed the sensitive skin. "When you see moose in rut, you stay very still and very quiet. With any luck they won't notice us." His grip tightened on her arm, though whether in warning or reassurance she could not tell, and he maneuvered her until her body pressed against his. She would have cursed him soundly for his perfidy, but she had no time, with a crack of collision, the two bulls came together in battle.
Joey did not know what to expect. Would this be a fight to the death? She held her breath and forgot everything else as the animals disengaged, threatened each other with snorts and bellows, and charged again. Luke's arm had somehow found its way about her shoulders, and she leaned her cheek on his chest without thinking, all her attention on the drama before them.
It ended almost as soon as it had begun. Without warning one of the bulls danced away, tossing its head angrily, while the other charged after it. It soon became a rout, with the defeated party crashing off into the brush as the victor turned his attentions to the placidly grazing cow. Joey felt a blush rising at what she feared might follow, suddenly aware of the proximity of Luke's hard chest, but much to her relief the two animals merely wandered at a sedate pace to the far edge of the meadow, browsing as they went, and disappeared among the trees.
"It usually doesn't result in serious injury," Luke commented. His deep voice vibrated against her ear. He had not loosed his hold on her, if anything, it had tightened. Now her heart had begun to race in spite of her will, every last protective shred of indifference drowned in a flood of perception. Of him.
She clenched her fists and held herself rigid. He would not humiliate her again, he would not.
"Animals have more sense than human beings," he said softly. Without quite letting go, he pushed her away to gaze at her, searching her eyes. He compelled her to look, and she did. He filled her sight and all her senses, no matter how hard she fought it. His hard face was almost relaxed, almost gentle, last night's ferocity was gone as if it had never existed. The fragile framework of her resolve collapsed entirely, and she could do nothing but feel him, though she wanted nothing more than to run and never see him again.
The grip of his fingers became a caress on her arm, trailing from shoulder to elbow. "Animals play games of dominance," he told her, "but they know when to quit."
His other hand released its hold and moved up to touch her face with feather softness. She closed her eyes and shuddered. She was melting in his heat, and she did not want it—and yet she wanted it so powerfully that everything she knew and believed in was disintegrating around her.
At last she gained enough control to open her eyes and face him again. "We're not animals," she whispered. "We're people. Life isn't so simple for us." She cursed herself for her vulnerability and for revealing so much, more than she wanted him to know. But she saw no triumph in his eyes.
His thumb brushed along her jaw. For a long moment he looked away, across the meadow and forest and beyond to the distant mountains. "Sometimes things are simple," he murmured. His hands moved back to her shoulders. "Joey, I've changed my mind. I'll help you find what you're looking for."
Joey's heart stopped. She stared at him, at an expression that revealed no hint of humor or calculation. She didn't know him, she reminded herself. She didn't know him, she had no reason to trust him. But she knew he was in earnest. She knew it with as much certainty as she had ever believed anything in her life.
There was no thought for what had made him change his mind, no time for lingering injured pride or doubts. Joey gave in to exultation and flung her arms about him. For an instant he was rigid against her, and then he was crushing her in a grip that almost drove the breath from her lungs. His face was pressed against her hair, his lean hardness molded to her body so that she could see and smell and feel only him.
When he let her go, setting her back on her feet, she was shaking. She had to hold on to him to keep from falling, and he supported her with his hands under her elbows, no more willing to let go than she. There were no bonds of logic to hold her back and bid her analyze the situation in coldly rational terms. There were no careful plans to consider. When his mouth came down on hers, she met it joyfully.
"Luke," she gasped against his mouth, and he pulled away to look at her with burning eyes, green licked with golden flame. For an eternity he did nothing but gaze at her with that strange and unfathomable stare, and she moaned as she wound her fingers in his dark hair, pulling him down again.
His arms lifted her easily, holding her so that every hard muscle of his body strained against her own. His mouth pressed her neck above the collar of her shirt and traced along the soft vulnerability of her throat and chin. Somehow the top buttons of her shirt came loose, and his lips were on the upper swell of her breasts while she hung suspended in his embrace.
Her hands clutched helplessly in his hair as his tongue moved over her, leaving a burning trail along her skin. Without conscious thought she wrapped her legs around his hips and felt the hardness of his arousal, she felt her body respond with aching need. He moved against her instinctively, as though no layers of clothes separated them, and his breath rasped in time to his stroking tongue.
When she felt she could take no more of his caresses, he let her slide down along his body and lowered his face to her hair while his hands cupped her buttocks and pressed her to him once more. The coarseness of his cheek rubbed hers as he caught her ear in his teeth, biting and sucking. The growing wildness within her demanded that she respond, that she return his caresses, but he held her so thoroughly captive that she could do nothing but accept what he wished to give.
Her breath had grown ragged, her heart pounding in time to the throbbing deep within that cried out for release. His lips traced over her jaw and found her mouth, long fingers pulled the tail of her shirt from the waist of her jeans and slipped underneath to burn against her ribs. They cupped under her breasts, sliding up to touch her aching nipples. His kiss deepened, almost overpowering, but it demanded and took from her something she was more than willing to give. She opened her mouth for him, accepted his searching tongue, met it with her own. He devoured her. He dominated her completely—and he burned.
PRINCE OF WOLVES Page 8
