by Janet Dailey
“It was a promise—one that every man here knows I will keep. Take my advice, señora, and do not try to persuade someone to help you leave here. I do not think you would like his death on your conscience.” Unexpectedly, he released her and walked away. “Go to your room, Señora Townsend.”
The compulsion was to defy his order. Sheila trembled with the force of it. With a whirl of her skirt, she pivoted and walked stiffly and proudly to her room.
Chapter 12
Thunder rattled through the house, the elements matching Sheila’s own stormy disposition. As she lit the candle beside the bed, the room seemed to grow smaller.
It grated on her that what little freedom she had was only at Ráfaga’s sufferance. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and turned. Staring at the flame-colored skirt and the embroidered blouse she wore, Sheila remembered the way she had rejoiced at receiving them and now felt sickened by them.
Ráfaga had given them to her. Suddenly she couldn’t bear the feel of the material against her skin. She stripped off the clothes and grabbed the blanket she had discarded earlier.
Wrapping it around her, she picked up the clothes and wadded them into a careless bundle. With head held high Sheila walked into the main room.
Ráfaga stood beside the fireplace, staring into the flames. His hand was braced on the mantle, his left knee bent to rest a foot on the wood box. The shadows cast by the firelight accented the angular planes of his face.
When Sheila entered, he slowly lifted his head. The hooded darkness of his eyes gazed at her impassively, noting the blanket she wore and the bundle in her arms. His aloofness stung.
“What is it now?” Ráfaga asked blandly. Then his mouth quirked in irony. “Have you thought up new insults to tell me since you have discovered I can speak and understand your language?”
“Here are your mistress’s clothes. You can give them back to her.” Sheila tossed the bundle at his feet. It landed half into the fireplace. “I don’t want them.”
He rescued them from the greedy flames and held them negligently in his hand. “They pleased you earlier.”
“Earlier.” Her voice trembled. “I didn’t realize how much I abhorred anything remotely connected with you.”
An ominous gleam entered his eyes. With deliberate slowness he walked toward her, pausing to drop the clothes on a chair, then continuing. Inwardly intimidated, Sheila held her ground.
“Since that is the way you feel, the blanket is mine.” A smooth thread of complacency ran through his voice. “Give it to me.”
“No,” she denied with a frowning start. Her hand instinctively clutched the folds of the blanket, as if she expected him to tear it from her.
“But it is mine,” Ráfaga pointed out again. “Since you do not want anything of mine touching your skin, I want it back.”
“Very well.” Sheila was having difficulty breathing naturally. It made her voice lack strength. “I will change into my own clothes and then bring it to you.”
Before she could turn away, he said firmly, “I want it now.”
“No,” she denied, the chill of fear coursing through her veins.
“Why not?” he reasoned mockingly. “Because you wear nothing underneath it? But I am familiar with your nudity. I have seen you several times. I know the upward thrust of your round, firm breasts, the slimness of your waist, and the way your slender hips were made to receive a man.”
Her cheeks flamed hotly as Sheila pivoted to run, terrified of the situation her rashness had provoked. His hand grabbed her arm just above the elbow, his fingers digging into her soft flesh to spin her around. The blanket slipped from her shoulder, aided by his other hand pushing it aside. Sheila barely managed to keep it from falling to the floor.
“I know these things that Laredo could only guess.” Ráfaga slowly drew her closer to his muscular length, his voice husky and smooth like velvet.
Yet beneath it, Sheila sensed a ruthlessness. Holding the blanket over her breasts, she was able to use only one arm to try to push him away. It would have been just as futile with two. His head bent toward her and Sheila twisted hers back and away.
His mouth plundered the slender curve of her throat, searing her skin with licking tongues of fire. She lifted her hand to the hard contour of his jaw, trying to push him away and failing.
“Why do you not caress me as you did Laredo?” His breath taunted against her neck. He pulled her hand away and twisted it behind her back, lifting his head to let his dark gaze mock her futile struggles. “Perhaps I can be persuaded to let you go.”
“Pig! I hate you!” Sheila spat.
The arm at her back tightened to crush her hips against the rigid muscles of his upper thighs. Arching backward to avoid contact with his chest, her breasts rose and fell rapidly in agitation. The loosened blanket slipped to reveal more of her curves.
“Yes, my lioness, you hate me.” Ráfaga smiled coldly. “You would like to scratch my eyes out. You constantly try to fight me, ignoring my orders even though you know I will make you obey them. You would have fared better if you had been meek and frightened instead of so determined to defy me.”
“If I had been meek and frightened, you and your murdering band would have raped and killed me when Brad was murdered!” Sheila reminded him in a savage breath.
“Now you are at my mercy.”
“Mercy? You have no mercy! No heart!” she said, then tried to struggle free again, but he held her easily.
She saw the muscles along his jaw harden and knew she had provoked him again. She accused him of having no mercy, and Ráfaga exhibited none as he bruised her lips with his punishing mouth.
Caught in the violently spinning whirlwind, her senses reeled under the assault. The ever-constricting band of his arms denied breath to her lungs while he smothered her mouth with his. Blackness swirled at the edges of her consciousness. Sheila fought to keep from being drawn into the vortex of his anger.
His aggressive virility was making her lose touch with reality. The grinding pressure of his mouth became less forceful and more sensually persuasive. And Sheila was too light-hearted to resist the exploring taste of his probing tongue. She was only half-aware that he had released the pinning grip on her arms. The arousing movements of his hands across her hips and back, molding closer to the granite strength of his body, were setting off explosive charges until she was clinging weakly to him.
Only a low moan of protest escaped from her throat when he lifted her off his feet and into his arms. His mouth maintained the soul-destroying kiss as he carried her. An insidious, primitive desire was growing inside of her and Sheila felt helpless to stop it. She hated him desperately while acknowledging his mastery of the art of seduction. Compared with Ráfaga, Brad had been a bungling amateur.
He laid her on the bed, rolling her out of the blanket as he did so. Sheila reached for it instinctively, but he tossed it out of reach. Then her lover-drugged senses realized it wasn’t her bed. It wasn’t her bedroom.
For a moment, Sheila was too paralyzed by the discovery to move. The weight of his body was on the mattress before she could recover. His hands instinctively found her in the semi-darkness. Their firm touch sent Sheila kicking and clawing like a wild animal. He laughed throatily, fending off her arms and legs as he pinned her to the mattress.
“Scream if you wish, little lioness,” Ráfaga murmured. “No one will hear you above the storm. Even if they do, they will not come.”
The warmth of his mouth found the sensitive cord along her neck. Sheila dug her fingers into his skin, feeling the satisfactory sensation of his flesh giving way beneath her nails as she raked them across his shoulders. Despite his muffled curse of pain, the hands holding her down did not relent an inch.
Her frantic violence was sapping her energy. Sheila paused to catch her breath. Immediately, he claimed possession of her parted lips, pressing her head back as he kissed her. His hands cupped her breasts to explore their round firmness.
&
nbsp; Sheila felt her nipple hardening beneath his touch and cried silently at her inability to control the responses of her flesh. Her head was spinning helplessly in the torrent of churning desires wracking her body.
These wanton, abandoned feelings were strange to her, yet she was powerless to control them. They were controlling her, taking over and making her want the physical gratification of his possession. The sensations were heightened when his mouth trailed down her neck to her breast. The touch of his tongue on her nipple drew an unwilling moan of pleasure from her lips.
There was no urgency in the languid passion of his caress, but the slow-burning fire inside her kept growing hotter and hotter. His exploring hands discovered and gently probed her secret, intimate places, touching, teasing, and releasing all her inhibitions and fears.
The heady male smell of him was an erotic stimulant, arousing her. As much as she wanted, she could never be indifferent to his touch. She was like a leaf, twisting, twisting, in the wind. Her virginity had already been lost to Brad’s savagery. Now her self-respect was rapidly being lost to Ráfaga’s sensuous mastery.
Beneath her hands, she could feel the naked, rippling muscles of his shoulders and the warm wetness of blood where she had scratched him. But her fingers were no longer clawing and raking his skin; instead, they were almost glorying in the feel of his hard flesh.
While she had a breath of will, Sheila pushed her hands against his shoulders, forcing Ráfaga to lift his head and end his tantalizing play with her nipple. Overpowering her, he bent his head toward her lips, but she eluded them.
“What are you waiting for?” Sheila murmured desperately. “Why don’t you rape me and get it over with?”
“But that would be too quick, my lioness,” he replied. “I wish to prolong the moment, the torture.”
His breath fanned her cheek an instant before his mouth covered hers in hungry demand. And it was torture, sweet torture. The ache in her loins sent Sheila’s nerve ends screaming with the need for his possession. In trembling caresses her hands moved over his back and shoulders. Her body writhed and twisted with the agony of her passion.
But it was some time before the full weight of his lean body moved onto her. His pulse was racing as wildly and as hotly as hers. His naked skin was fiery-hot to the touch, and the heat seemed to fuse them together. Sheila felt his male hardness and knew his need was as great as hers.
A purring-kitten sound came from her lips as his muscled legs slid intimately between hers, forcing them apart. Fulfillment was only a moment away, and a shudder of mindless ecstasy quivered through her. When it came, Sheila was enveloped in a whirling, velvet mist of sensations. Primitive tremors alternated with rapturous wonder until she lay weak and spent, and alone.
The whirlwind of strange, new emotions slowly dissipated. Its aftermath left Sheila stunned by his sensual lovemaking. Gradually she surfaced and there was self-disgust and shame that she had found any pleasure in his arms.
Ráfaga moved, his shoulder brushing her arm. A shiver of awareness danced over her skin, the banked flames within flaring to life. Her jaw tightened at the involuntary response of her body, frightened that she was unable to control it.
Sheila had to get away from his touch. Sliding her legs to the edge of the narrow bed, she started to rise, but his hand caught her arm. Sheila was unable to wrench away from his steel grip.
“Where are you going?”
“To my room,” Sheila retorted stiffly.
“Why?” Ráfaga asked, detached and impersonal now.
“I was under the impression that all your whoring companions left you to sleep alone,” she replied caustically rather than admit she needed time to gain control of her senses and forget the satisfaction she had found in his arms.
“You say that because of Elena, no?”
“Who else?” Sheila flared. His fathomless dark eyes were immune to the look of loathing she gave him. “Do you think I could not hear the two of you when I lay in my bed? The disgusting sounds of your lovemaking? Her whispered good night when she left?”
“If you found it so disgusting, you should not have listened,” Ráfaga taunted.
“I had no choice with two rutting pigs in the next room,” she declared.
He pulled her beside him, his arm forcing her shoulders onto the mattress. Sheila didn’t struggle, choosing a rigid unresistance to his touch.
“The sleeping arrangement suited Elena and me, even if it did not please you,” he said coldly.
“What would please me”—Sheila matched his icy tone—“is to not sleep in this bed with you.”
“That is unfortunate,” he murmured arrogantly.
“Why?” she stormed. Childishly, she reminded him, “Elena didn’t sleep with you. Why must you force me to stay?”
“The situation is not the same. Elena wished to be home with her family and the man who is her husband. You have nothing waiting for you but an empty bed.”
Sheila turned to face him, the tangled gold of her hair acting as a pillow for her head. “What? Her husband?” Disgusted shock curled her lips. “Do you mean she was married and came here—to you?!!”
The blackness of his gaze ran disdainfully over her face. “You are very quick to condemn others when it is your own mind that is vulgar and crude. César, Elena’s husband, is paralyzed. He is one of the living dead—his mind is not in this world. For four years he has been this way, leaving Elena with only his memory to love and two children. She is young and has the physical needs of a normal woman. While she wanted a man’s love, she did not wish to forsake her husband. I needed a woman but did not require a wife. So we came to a mutually satisfactory agreement.”
“It doesn’t matter how you disguise it or what rationale you use; she is still your mistress and she is still married,” Sheila retorted.
His hand slid to her throat. It rested lightly on the vulnerable and exposed curve, his fingers capable of tightening to a stranglehold, but his touch remained gentle, almost a caress.
“You believe she is a hypocrite for staying with her husband and seeking physical satisfaction from me, no?” Ráfaga taunted. “And what about you, who cries murder and does not even grieve for her husband?”
“You don’t know what I feel inside,” Sheila said defensively.
“When I am lying in bed, I, too, hear your sounds in the next room,” he told her in sardonic mockery. “Never once since you have been here have I heard you cry—not for yourself or for him.”
“If I cried, would it change anything?” she demanded bitterly. Not for anything did Sheila want to admit to Ráfaga that she felt nothing for the loss of her husband. “Would it make you pity me? I doubt it.” She answered the question herself. “You have no compassion. You don’t know the meaning of the word. Perhaps I don’t grieve where you could hear or see because I know you would mock it.”
“Perhaps you do not grieve because he did not love you, nor you him,” Ráfaga countered.
Sheila breathed in sharply, realizing how thoroughly he controlled everything that went on in this canyon hideout. There was only one person who could have given him that information.
“Laredo told you what I said about him,” she said in accusation.
“Is it true?” he persisted. “Tell me about him. I want to know.”
Stubbornly, she hesitated, not wanting to obey, but she knew he would force some answer from her. So she gave him one that was meant to wound.
“There is not very much to tell,” Sheila answered slowly. “The two of you would probably have gotten along famously together. You are very much the same. Brad, too, was interested only in my money. He also took me because I was available and he thought he had the right to use me to satisfy his lust.”
“You were a virgin when he took you.” It was more of a statement than a question as the disquieting glitter in his dark eyes roamed her face.
His hand shifted to her jawline, his thumb tracing the outline of her lips. Sheila’s nerves vibrated at
his closeness, lying next to her, naked, so virilely masculine and vitally strong.
“Was I?” she murmured, unable to lie convincingly when she knew he could feel the slightest change in her heartbeat.
“You said you were on your honeymoon with your husband when we took you. And I could tell no one has taught you the ways of love. Tonight you were surprised and frightened by the pleasures a woman can feel. But it is quite natural, little lioness. Perhaps as you grow to learn this, you will learn tolerance for Elena, also,” Ráfaga murmured.
Grow to learn this: the words raced down her spine.
Her gold-flecked eyes widened, fear interlaced with anger as she stared at him.
“What are you suggesting?” Sheila demanded, trying to keep the note of panic out of her voice. “You aren’t saying that you intend to teach me??”
“You will learn quickly, I think,” he said with a considering look.
A flash of lightning splintered into the room, briefly illuminating the rough, unyielding contours of his face.
“I may be your prisoner here, but I’m not going to become your mistress,” Sheila stated vigorously, “if that’s what you have in mind.”
“Not willingly, perhaps.”
She tried to push away the hand that cupped her face, but his gentle touch turned to steel. “Leave me alone. You never came near me all this time. Why now?” she demanded.
“It is natural for a man to want to possess a beautiful and desirable woman like you. When you provoked my anger tonight, I saw no more reason to deny what I wanted,” Ráfaga replied in a dispassionate tone. “Are you not sorry now that you put your proposition to Laredo in front of me?”
“I don’t believe you,” Sheila murmured coldly. “There is one thing I’ve learned while I’ve been confined to this house with you. You do not let yourself be carried away by emotions, not anger, or desire.”
His throaty chuckle at her statement held no humor. “Your head is beautiful, but not empty, is it, señora?” His fingers curled into the hair near her ear. “I find your beauty tempting. Others may, too. If you offer it to them, and money, they might not be able to resist. Tomorrow morning they will learn that you are my woman. No one will help you or dare to come near you then,” Ráfaga ended complacently.
