by Linda Howard
“I don’t reckon I have to explain,” he drawled. He was the boss. He could wear a shirt or not, as he damn well pleased.
She was still looking at his bare torso with helpless fascination. “Look at me,” he said, putting a finger under her chin and tilting it upward. Her lashes swept open, and those deep green eyes fastened on him. He moved closer, bent down, and closed his mouth over hers, forcing her lips to part and using his tongue. He didn’t trust himself and quickly released her, stepping away from the enticement of her firm body beneath the thin shirt, but the kiss was enough to make her eyes go dark with shock.
“You’re safe for now,” he said. “But when you’re healed, things will change. I’ll be coming after you, and it won’t take me long to get you.”
6
DEE FELT MUCH BETTER THE NEXT DAY, THOUGH STILL not able to lift her arms more than a few inches. Lucas showed up again shortly past dawn, and they went through the same routine, with him cooking for her and taking care of her chores. Afterward he insisted that she soak in hot water again, and this time was far more embarrassing than it had been before. She wasn’t in as much pain and therefore was even more acutely aware of her nakedness. So was Lucas. She could see it in his clenched jaw and the sweat glistening on his brow.
She had lain awake a good bit of the night, going over and over what he had said. As accustomed as she was to defending her virtue with a shotgun, it had still rattled her to find that Lucas had the same intentions as all those others who had come slipping around. What made him far more dangerous to her was the fact that knowing it didn’t rouse her to contemptuous anger, as was the case with the others, but rather made her heart beat a little faster. It frightened her to admit that she wanted Lucas to want her, but it was the truth.
So what was she going to do about it? Let a man into her life after fighting so hard to achieve independence? Have an affair with him, when it would destroy her respectability if anyone found out about it? Betray Olivia?
Nor could she ignore the possibility that what he really wanted was Angel Creek. He no doubt planned to exploit her vulnerability to him to convince her to sell out. After all, buying the land had been the reason he had first sought her out.
What she knew about sex was only what she had seen in the barnyard, when the bull mounted one of the cows. She knew what happened but had had no idea of the fierce physical attraction between a man and a woman until Lucas had come riding up. His kiss, as brief and hard as it had been, had shown her that there was a great deal more to mating than she had suspected. She had foolishly thought she would be able to keep him from kissing her, but she had not only let him, she had wanted more. She had felt the burn of physical desire for the first time, and it tormented her, for her body had felt out of her control.
If Lucas wanted the land, he also wanted her. She wasn’t so naive that she didn’t realize the significance of the bulge in the crotch of his pants, even if he hadn’t so bluntly admitted his intentions. It weakened her to know that the torment was mutual.
After he had dried her and clothed her in another of his shirts, brought specifically for that purpose, he silently put her back in bed and left the cabin, his boot heels thudding on the porch. When he returned half an hour later he was back in control of himself, but his blue eyes still held signs of his bad temper.
“I don’t think you should come by tomorrow,” Dee said, pulling the sheet to her chin. “I’m much better today, and the soreness will leave faster if I work it out.”
“Trying to get rid of me?” he asked. “It won’t work.”
She turned her face away from him. “What about Olivia?” she asked quietly. “She’s my friend.”
She couldn’t see him, but she could feel his fierce gaze fasten on her. He didn’t show surprise at her words. He just said, “What about her?”
“The talk is that you’re going to marry her.”
“I’d thought about it,” he admitted, his temper fraying. Did she think he would be there if he had committed himself to another woman? “But not lately. We certainly as hell don’t have any sort of understanding between us. I’m a free man.”
She plucked at the sheet, still not looking at him. “It would probably be better if you didn’t come by tomorrow anyway.”
“If you weren’t such a damn idiot, you wouldn’t need for me to come by,” he growled, glad that she had provided him with an excuse to release his temper. Being around her, with her either naked or only partly clothed, had strained his control to the limit. He felt half-mad with the need to have her.
“I know,” she said, readily accepting the blame, which only made him angrier. “I try to be so careful, but that time I wasn’t.”
“You shouldn’t be pitching down hay in the beginning!” he yelled. “You shouldn’t be working this farm by yourself! Why can’t you move to town and be a normal woman, instead of trying to prove that you can make it all on your own when it’s pure insanity that you’d even want to?”
Dee looked at him then, her eyes narrowing in a dangerous, catlike way. It wasn’t in her to simply take his attack in silence, so she didn’t. “What I want to know is why you think it’s any of your business,” she said in an even tone. “I appreciate your help, but that doesn’t give you the right to tell me how to live.”
“You know what gives me the right.” He walked over to stand by the bed, glaring down at her. “You know it’s going to end only one way.”
“I believe that’s still my decision.”
“When the time comes, you’re going to lie down and open your legs for me,” he said savagely. “Don’t try to fool yourself.”
She tried to lift herself up on an elbow, but her shoulders and arms were still too sore, and she fell back with a stifled moan. This further evidence of her own physical helplessness, however, didn’t mean that she thought he was right. “Then I see only one solution: Don’t come back here, because you aren’t welcome.”
“Are you going to use the shotgun on me?” he taunted, leaning down so close that she could see the glittering depths of his eyes. “Then take your best shot, sweetheart, because I’ll be back.”
She lashed out in retaliation. “You overestimate your charm. I’d always wonder what you really wanted, me or Angel Creek.”
“Both, sweetheart,” he said, and he crashed his mouth down onto hers. It was a rough kiss, and she tried to bite him, but he jerked his head back, then returned to kiss her even harder. His fingers clamped on her chin and held it down so he could enter her mouth with his tongue. Dee clawed at his arms, but with her limited range of movement it was a wasted effort. He held her down and ruthlessly kissed her until she felt the coppery taste of blood in her mouth. He tasted it, too, and the pressure eased. He sucked her lower lip into his mouth and stroked it with his tongue, soothing the hurt.
He unbuttoned the shirt she wore and opened it, baring her breasts. Her breath caught in her throat as his hard, warm hand closed over one of the soft mounds.
“This is what it would be like between us,” he muttered. “Hot and wild. Think about it, damn you.” His thumb rubbed her nipple into a tight peak, and her entire body clenched from the pleasure and pain of it. He cupped both breasts, holding them high and together, and buried his face against them. His hot breath washed over her, then he took one nipple between his teeth, drawing it into his mouth with a strong sucking motion. Incredible heat shot through her, and she whimpered, her hips writhing a little.
As if that were a signal he released her breast and stood, his face dark and taut with both anger and physical need. “I can make you go wild,” he said. “Remember that when you think about using the shotgun on me.”
He walked out, leaving her lying on the bed with her shirt unbuttoned and spread open, her bare breasts heaving with the violence of the response he had stirred in her. A moment later she heard him ride away. “Damn you,” she whispered, and she would have shouted it if she thought he might hear her. She was shaking with anger—or was it from
the empty torment he had aroused in her body? Perhaps it was both, though the whys didn’t really matter.
She had never before been vulnerable to a man, but she was to him. That was the most frightening thing she had ever faced in her life, far more frightening than being left alone to fend for herself. She had never doubted her ability to survive, but she was terrified of what Lucas could do to her.
Losing first one parent and then the other had shaken her to the core. She had been afraid, so horribly afraid, but she had had to go on. She had been forced to recognize, with brutal swiftness, how fragile life was, how easily it could be taken. She had pulled deep inside herself, unwilling to trust her emotions to anyone else because she simply couldn’t bear any more pain and couldn’t take the risk of losing someone else she loved. Devoting herself to the garden had saved her sanity, given her a sense of life again, because the earth was so giving. It, at least, was eternal. It would be there long after she herself had died. She could trust the warm soil, the cycles of the seasons, the renewal of life each spring. Except for Olivia, she hadn’t even been tempted to let anyone close to her again.
And now Lucas was shattering her mental wall of remoteness. He could destroy not only the life she had built for herself but her very self-respect. If she let him mean too much to her, he could reduce her to someone she would despise, without will or spirit, willing to do anything to keep him happy. Wanting him hadn’t blinded her to his nature; Lucas was strong and arrogant, ruthless when it came to getting what he wanted. He wanted her, and he wouldn’t listen to any of her refusals. It wasn’t that she feared he would force her, for his own ego wouldn’t let him do that, but rather that she would lose her own will to tell him no.
He had demonstrated to her very aptly how weak she could be when he wanted to make love to her. And he hadn’t even done that much—kissed her, and touched and kissed her breast—but she had been on the verge of pleading with him for more. It was humiliating to realize he could handle her so easily.
Though anger had motivated her to tell him not to come back, now that she had calmed down she realized it was only common sense, and the best thing for her. The question, though, was if Lucas would obey.
She had her answer early the next morning when she heard hoofbeats approaching. She looked at the shotgun but admitted that it was a futile threat, right now at least. Though she had managed to dress herself in a fashion, she still wasn’t capable of lifting the heavy weapon and firing it with any sort of aim.
Without knocking he opened the front door, which had been left unbarred for the past two days. Dee turned from the stove to look at him, a stinging rebuke on her lips that she forced herself to swallow; after all, the door had been left unbarred for that precise reason.
It gave her no small measure of satisfaction to see his black eyebrows snap downward in a scowl when he saw her standing at the stove turning bacon with a fork.
“You shouldn’t be doing that.”
“I told you, I’m feeling better. I can manage this.”
“But not putting on your shoes,” he observed, looking down at her bare feet.
She had tried but hadn’t been able to bend down far enough to pull on her stockings or shoes. It was also true that she still wore his shirt, but it served well enough as a blouse. She had struggled until she had donned her underdrawers, a petticoat, and her skirt and tucked the shirt in. After two days of being bare or almost so, the heavy clothes had given her a certain sense of comfort.
He tossed a small package on the table. She looked at it, then lifted her brows inquiringly at him. “It’s a nightgown. To replace the one I cut off of you.”
She was glad that he had thought of it, for she only owned two. “I’ll wash your shirts and return them.”
“No hurry.” He was watching her so intensely that she began to feel uncomfortable and had to resist the urge to check if all of her buttons were buttoned. But he only reached out to take the fork from her hand and said, “Sit. I’ll finish this.”
Lucas was very aware of the short pause before she did as he said, and he didn’t relax until she was safely sitting down. He had ridden up to the cabin with every nerve alert, waiting for a shotgun blast at any second. He had pushed her too hard and too far the day before, and he knew it. With most women—hell, any other woman—he would have expected nothing more than a temper tantrum at worst, and more likely tears or sulking. But Dee was likely to do just as she said and greet him with buckshot. Which was, he thought grimly, just what he deserved for having been so stupid. He had been thinking with his gonads, not his brain. Just because he had been hot and hard and frustrated he’d let his temper get the best of him.
After breakfast he knelt and slipped plain white stockings on her feet, smoothing them up her legs and tying the garters just above her knees. After the past two days such a service didn’t even bring a blush to her face. Then he laced her into her sturdy work shoes, and his face became grim again as he thought of the dainty cloth slippers she could wear if she didn’t insist on working like a horse. This time, however, he had sense enough to keep his mouth shut.
He took her outside to walk around, her first trip past the cabin door since the morning after she had fallen. She insisted on inspecting the garden plot she had plowed, and she told him what she planned to plant. “Corn, of course, and peas. 1 had good luck selling squash last year, so I’ll add another row of it this time. Here I’ll make the beds for the onions and carrots, and a few pepper plants. And I think I’ll try potatoes this year. Mr. Winches always has them, but I imagine he pays a pretty penny having them shipped in.”
Her eyes were shining as she looked at the plot of raw earth; she saw green food-bearing plants, plants that fed her through the winter and gave her a means of living. Lucas looked at the same earth and thought of the work she would have to do, first planting, then the daily battle with weeds and insects, and finally the harvesting days, when she would have to work the hardest, for she would not only be doing her normal chores but working in the kitchen to put up in canning jars the vegetables she would need over the winter. A farm woman didn’t have it easy at the best of times; a farm woman on her own was likely to work herself into an early grave. Unless she had sense enough to sell out.
Dee was strong, her slim body lithe and well muscled, but eventually the work would get to be too much for her. Lucas looked down at her, with her hip-length hair flowing down her back and her exotic face lifted to the morning sun, and he swore to himself right then that he would get her off the farm before it killed her or made her old before her time. He’d have to fight her every inch of the way, but that would keep him on his toes.
Before he thought, he bent his head and kissed her, his hands on her waist to pull her close against him. Her green eyes widened with surprise, then slowly fluttered shut as her mouth opened gently for him. Her lips were soft and full, the lower one still slightly swollen from his roughness the day before. He treated her with more care now, keeping the pressure light even though his tongue probed sensually. This time she tilted her head and met his advance with first a hesitant touch, then a tender searching with her own tongue that made his senses reel. His hands tightened momentarily on her waist, then he slid one arm behind her while his other hand moved up to close surely over her breast.
Immediately she tried to pull away, a protest sounding in her throat. Lucas held her, his long fingers kneading the rich flesh, rubbing at her sensitive nipple. “I’m not going to do more than this,” he muttered as his mouth moved roughly down her throat. “Just relax and let me make you feel good.”
He made her feel too good, Dee thought in despair, and it all happened too fast. One kiss, one touch, and she wanted him to do everything. She even wanted to open her legs to that hard length she could feel pressed against her belly, and that would never do, because it would be such an enormous error to give Lucas that sort of hold over her.
She couldn’t push at him, but she found enough strength, enough sanity, to tu
rn her head away and say, “No, Lucas. No. I don’t want you to do this.”
“Liar,” he said, but he raised his head. His lips were shiny from kissing her, the set of them a little cruel. She was totally at his mercy and she knew it, but she wasn’t certain he had any mercy. If he chose to continue making love to her, she would not only give in, she would join in, even beg him if necessary.
“I’m not lying,” she insisted before he could kiss her again. Honesty impelled her to add, “I didn’t say that I don’t want you. I said that I don’t want you to treat me like this.”
“Even in that, you’re lying.” But he slowly let her go, and that was what she had intended.
She felt as if all of her clothes were awry; it was disturbing to look down and find that nothing was disturbed after all. All of the turbulence had been inside.
“You wouldn’t do this if I were anyone else.” Her voice was low as she made the charge. “You wouldn’t treat Olivia like this.” She remembered the day she had first seen him since his return, how civil he had been to Olivia and the giggling young women grouped around her. He would never handle any of them the way he had been touching her.
Lucas’s gaze sharpened. “Like a woman, you mean? Maybe you’re right. But don’t accuse me of treating you like a whore, damn you, because we both know different.”
“A whore is what people would call me.”
“How would anyone know? What’s between us is private.”
There was nothing more to be said, it seemed. She turned to go back to the house, and he fell into step beside her, his strong hands helping her up the steps when her back muscles protested. He kissed her again, then left her to attend to the chores.
She was alone that night when, more out of curiosity than for any practical reason, she opened the package that contained the nightgown, as she was still confined to sleeping in his shirt. The garment that was revealed had nothing in common with her practical white sleepwear, not even intent, for surely this wasn’t meant to be worn in bed, merely to bed, where a lover’s eager hands would remove it.
