The Reluctant Lark

by Iris Johansen

  “You’re quite right,” Challon said, his golden eyes twinkling. “I didn’t want to sully your delicate little ears with my more scandalous exploits.” He got lithely to his feet. “Are you through with this?” he asked, gesturing to the tray.

  Sheena nodded absently, and he removed it from her lap and placed it on the hearth. He returned to sit down beside her on the chaise longue and take her hand in his. “All right, little dove, I’m now at your disposal. Fire away!”

  Sheena found it hard to think as he lifted her hand and kissed the palm lingeringly, his tongue teasing her sensitive flesh. “You have the tiniest hands,” he said. She could feel the vital heat of his body as he settled himself closer to her.

  She drew a deep, shaky breath. “You know all the questions,” she said huskily. “Suppose you just furnish me with the answers.”

  “Fair enough.” His hands were idly playing with her fingers as he said, “I saw a picture of you in a newspaper at the time of your brother’s death five years ago. It moved me more than anything that I’d ever known. Your face seemed to encompass all the sadness and weariness in the world.” He frowned at the memory. “It made me mad as hell. For some reason, I felt as if someone had damaged something that belonged to me.” He shook his head ruefully. “I thought I was going crazy. I kept seeing your face and remembering those big black eyes until I found myself searching the newspapers for any news of you. It was like a compulsion. I finally decided that the only way to get you out of my mind was to find out as much as I could about you and remove the mystique.”

  “That’s when you hired the detective agency,” Sheena guessed.

  He nodded. “Right. But it didn’t accomplish the purpose that I intended it to. Instead of dissipating the fascination I felt for you, it magnified it. The reports began to be an accepted part of my week, and it became a positive passion to know every nuance of your life. I even had the detective take photos of you as you went about your daily schedule. Those photographs in the study are quite meager compared to the lot I have at Crescent Creek.” He lifted her hand to nibble delicately at her fingers. “I sometimes thought I’d gone completely haywire. You were only seventeen then, and I was almost twenty-nine. I alternated between my desire to meet you, and the knowledge that I had no business in your life until you were older and more capable of handling everything I was going to ask of you.” He looked up and smiled lovingly into her bemused face. “I knew even then that I was going to ask a hell of a lot from you, dove.” He looked down at her hand again. “You never wear jewelry,” he observed inconsequentially. “Don’t you like it?”

  “Not particularly,” Sheena answered. “I wear earrings occasionally.”

  “I’d like to see you in those golden dangly things,” he said. “I love you with that wild gypsy look.”

  “You thought you were too old for me?” she prompted impatiently, anxious to get him back on the track.

  “What?” he asked vaguely. “Oh, yes. Well, I decided that I could give you the time you needed as long as I knew there wasn’t anyone else in the wings. Thanks to dear Uncle Donal, I didn’t have to worry about possible rivals. He protected you just as jealously as I would have myself.” His lips were brushing against her fragile, blue-veined wrist. “As the years passed, I developed the joys of anticipation to a fine art. Sometimes it was rather like a Chinese water torture to have you so much a part of my life and yet not be able to see or touch you.” His tongue touched the rapid pulse in her wrist, and she jerked it away, tucking her hand beneath the folds of her robe. She found she was liking his light, teasing lovemaking far too much.

  He gave her a knowing, satisfied glance. “I thought I was giving you ample time to get over your brother’s death and grow up a little, but thanks to O’Shea, it didn’t work out that way.” His hand was now stroking a fold of the soft velvet robe. He was evidently a very tactile man, Sheena thought absently.

  “I was going to give you until the end of the year before I came over to Ireland to get you. But then O’Shea arranged your American tour, and I couldn’t resist going to see you. Needless to say, that accelerated my plans somewhat.” He smiled. “I should have known that I wouldn’t be able to resist taking you, sweetheart. I’d waited far too long already.”

  “So you just kidnapped me,” Sheena said blankly. “You decided that you wanted me, and you just took me.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”

  He shook his tawny head, his golden eyes oddly grave. “You haven’t been listening, dove. I don’t deny that I want you, but that’s not the reason I abducted you.”

  “Then why?” she asked bewilderedly.

  “I love you,” he said simply.

  Sheena could feel the blood drain from her face as her eyes widened with shock. “You couldn’t love me,” Sheena protested. “You don’t even know me.”

  “I know more about you than most men know about their wives on their golden wedding anniversaries,” he said. “And everything I know, I love. I know that there’s tenderness and mischief lying in wait beneath that solemn face you wear. I know you have a temper that makes you look like a stormy child on occasion. I know that you’re a passionate gypsy of a woman just waiting to come alive.”

  She stared as if mesmerized as he swiftly leaned forward and lifted her to the far side of the chaise longue. “Scoot over, love.” He slid up to rest his head on the back of the chair, his body turned facing her. The confines of the chaise longue brought them in sudden breathless proximity.

  He chuckled as his arms went around her and he pulled her into his embrace. “I forgot to tell you that this was another one of my fantasies,” he said. “That was why I made sure this chaise longue was very, very roomy.”

  His lips hovered for a teasing moment over her own before closing with a slow sensuousness that caused her to arch against him and to open her lips to the sweet invasion of his tongue. “That’s right, love, open to me. Let me come into every part of you. God, I want you!”

  His lips were taking her feverishly now, moving over the silky flesh of her throat with a hunger that was almost savage in its intensity. She arched her throat, as if to the kiss of the sun. Then she felt his hands at the tiny buttons on the bodice of the robe. He had already undone four of the buttons when she was moved to protest.

  She put a restraining hand on his busy fingers, and he looked up. “It’s all right, dove,” he said, smiling lovingly as he perceived the dazed confusion on her face. He gently moved her hand aside and continued to unbutton the robe.

  “Do you know that some desert tribesmen garb their brides in beautiful caftans with hundreds of buttons like these on their wedding nights? They say that each button is a step closer to paradise.” His hands had reached the buttons at her waist now. “I thought of that the day I bought the robe.”

  He pushed her a little away from him and looked down at her, his face taut and hungry with need. “I love you,” he said huskily. “Believe me when I say that I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.” His hands slowly spread the robe open, his eyes fixed on her small, perfectly formed breasts with their pink-tipped crowns. “I know that you don’t love me yet, but I can teach you. I think your body already loves me a little.”

  His head bent slowly, and his tongue teasingly encircled one taut nipple, which immediately hardened eagerly in response. “Oh, yes, your body loves me.” His hands cupped her breasts gently while his teeth and tongue tormented the swollen nipples until Sheena cried out and clutched his head closer to her breasts in an agony of frustration.

  He moved over her, one leg parting hers as his hands rhythmically squeezed her breasts and his tongue continued its play at her nipples. He slowly lowered his thighs so that she could feel his warm, hard arousal through the velvet of her robe. She gave a feverish gasp as his hips began a rhythmic thrusting movement that matched the tempo of his hands on her breasts.

  She was writhing beneath him now, making tiny mewing noises, her hands clutching helplessly at his brawny sh
oulders. She had never experienced such a fever as was flooding every limb in her body and centering in the fluid apex of her loins. “Rand,” she gasped, her head moving from side to side on the back of the chaise longue. “Rand.”

  His face above her was flushed and harsh with need, his eyes narrowed with tigerish pleasure as they watched each new sensation reflected in her face.

  Suddenly his hands left her breasts, and he swung off her body with lithe swiftness. His breath was coming in labored jerks as he stood up and walked to the fireplace to stand with his back to her, staring into the flames.

  Sheena sat up slowly, her dazed eyes on Challon’s muscular shoulders, bent as if he were in pain. It had all happened so swiftly that she couldn’t comprehend what had transpired. Her hands went automatically to the buttons of her bodice, and he must have heard her move, for he whirled to face her.

  He took one look at her bewildered face and the pained darkness in her eyes and swiftly crossed back to her and dropped down beside her once more. “Poor little dove,” he crooned tenderly, as his hand gently stroked her black curls. “It wasn’t very fair to you, was it? Well, take comfort that it was pure hell for me to stop. I’ve never wanted anyone in my life the way I wanted you just now. But it’s not enough, Sheena. We deserve more, and I’ll be damned if we don’t get it!”

  “More?” she repeated dazedly. How could there possibly be more than the mind-jolting excitement that they had just experienced?

  Challon nodded, his fingers absently threading through her curls. “More. You don’t love me yet, but you will very soon. I think you care more than you know right now.” He tilted her head back to kiss her with lingering sweetness, and she instinctively melted against him. “After five years, I can wait a little longer for it to be totally perfect.” He drew a deep breath and put her firmly away from him. “Correction. I can wait, if I get the hell out of here.”

  He stood up reluctantly, his gaze running lingeringly over her pink, swollen lips and tousled black curls before moving down to her unbuttoned bodice. His hand reached out compulsively to caress one pert breast beneath the crimson velvet, his golden eyes darkening to amber. Then giving a sigh that was more like a shudder, he moved away from her and walked slowly to the door.

  He turned, his hand on the knob, and even in the dimness of the flickering firelight, she could see the twinkle in his golden eyes. “We only made it halfway to paradise tonight,” he said mockingly. “But be sure you keep that robe on hand, dove. I guarantee that we’ll get there the next time.”

  Five

  “You cheated!” Sheena accused, throwing her cards down in disgust. “I don’t know why I play with you, Rand Challon. I must be some sort of masochist to take the kind of beating you hand out and still come back for more.” She stood up and stretched lazily, like a small, sinuous cat. “Well, I won’t be so foolish again. No one can be as lucky as that.”

  Rand leaned lazily back in his chair at the card table and began to gather the cards and stack them. His golden eyes were twinkling as he observed her stormy, indignant face and mutinous mouth. “I’m glad you finally realized that, dove,” he drawled. “Anyone else would have tumbled to that particular bit of knowledge a week ago. I was beginning to think you were a little thick. You were a lamb ready for the fleecing, and I’ve never been known to stay my hand when the stakes are that tempting.”

  “You have the gall to admit it!” Sheena said, planting her hands on her hips and glaring at him fiercely. “Have you no ethics at all?”

  “Not where you’re concerned,” Rand said blandly. “Now, come around here and pay up.”

  “I most certainly will not,” she said haughtily. “All bets are off. You have your nerve even suggesting such a thing after confessing what a scoundrel you are.”

  “Scoundrel?” Challon cocked his tawny head inquiringly. “Lord, what an old-fashioned word. But I like the way it rolls off your tongue in that funny little brogue.”

  “Oh!” Sheena knotted her fists in frustration. “You’re completely impossible. You have absolutely no sense of shame. I refuse to even speak to you.” She whirled and marched across the room to the couch in front of the fireplace and plopped down indignantly.

  She was hardly seated when she heard Challon push back his chair and stand up. “Actually, I prefer it that way, sweetheart,” Rand said mischievously. “It saves so much time.”

  Before she had time to look over her shoulder, he was across the room and on the couch beside her. He gathered her swiftly up in his arms and transferred her into his lap. “Now, pay up,” he ordered. “I’ve been waiting all evening for my just reward.”

  “Just reward?” Sheena said indignantly. “You have—” The rest of her protest was smothered beneath his lips. For fully thirty seconds she withstood temptation and kept her body stiff and unresponsive. Then as Challon deepened the kiss, she gave a low moan and melted against him as she always did. It was a feverish and breathless fifteen minutes before he reluctantly stopped kissing her. They were both flushed and shaken, and Sheena could hear Rand’s heart beating furiously beneath her ear. She did not recall when she had unbuttoned his green-and-black-plaid shirt, but it was an uncontested fact that her face was pressed to the wiry mat of tawny hair on his chest. She moved her cheek in sensuous enjoyment, liking the feel of the roughness against the smoothness of her cheek. He always smelled deliciously of clean soap and that warm earthy odor that was distinctly his own.

  “Be still,” Rand growled, pressing her head firmly to his chest. “These damn teasing petting sessions are driving me up the wall. Do you know that I didn’t sleep until nearly dawn last night?”

  Sheena refused to admit to him that she had been in a similar state when they had parted the night before. She had burned with an aching hunger that had caused her to toss restlessly for hours.

  “I’m certainly not forcing you to make love to me,” she said tartly, making a motion to slip off his lap.

  “Just be still,” he ordered. “I’m well aware our present status quo is my own choice, but it doesn’t make it any easier when I have to let you go. Just give me a minute to cool down.”

  She lay quietly in his arms, intimidated for the moment by the hunger in his voice.

  She was fully aware that he was entirely correct in his statement. She had admitted to herself some time ago that Challon could have taken her anytime in the last week, and she wouldn’t have uttered a single protest. She smiled ruefully as she realized what a gross understatement that was. There had been moments in this last week when she had been not only eager but frantic for him to carry on with his lovemaking to its final conclusion. Sometimes she had been in a positive fury of frustration and had unconsciously tried to tempt him into breaking that tightly leashed control, but to no avail. Challon’s steely determination had never wavered, even in the face of that physical chemistry that was like an electric force field surrounding them.

  The past week had been the strangest one that Sheena had ever known. Balanced on the fine edge of desire, the days had still possessed a warm, tranquil contentment. Challon had possessed every moment of her waking day with a sweeping arrogance that she found curiously comforting. There were no troublesome decisions to make because he made them for her, and she had no option but to flow in Challon’s turbulent wake. There were long walks every morning that she found highly enjoyable, hours of companionable conversation and equally companionable silences. In the afternoons they usually lunched with Laura Bradford and then played chess until time to change for dinner.

  In the evenings Laura conveniently disappeared to her room after dinner, and then Challon had initiated Sheena into the intricacies of poker. Claiming that the game lacked zest with the gambling element removed, Challon had instituted forfeits into the game that were as heady as they were enjoyable. This inevitably led to their lingering in each other’s arms until they could bear no more of the addictive caresses without committing their bodies totally.

  Sheena unconscious
ly nestled closer to Challon’s hard body as she remembered the heated pleasure he gave her so effortlessly. As she had noticed previously, he was a very tactile man, and even when he was not making love to her, he seemed to take great pleasure in just holding her hand or stroking her throat as he conversed lazily with her. She found she took equal pleasure in the cuddling and casual touching and found herself reaching out with equal eagerness to take his hand or tentatively touch the hard swell of the muscles in his forearm.

  Sheena had never thought herself a particularly passionate woman, but Rand seemed to be able to set her on fire with only that curiously intimate smile or simply by running his fingers casually from the curve of her elbow to her wrist.

  At times she wondered why she accepted her captivity with such passivity after her initial fury and indignation. She decided that the answer must lie in the odd sense of unreality that pervaded her stay in this beautiful place. The experience was so far removed from her ordinary life that it had a curious dreamlike quality. Everything, that is, but her relationship with Rand Challon. Nothing could be more vividly real than this golden lion man, and he made sure that she was fully conscious of the fact.

  “If you’ve gone to sleep on me, I’m going to be most annoyed with you, love.” Challon’s amused voice broke through her reverie. “It’s bad enough trying to keep myself from sampling that lovely body of yours, without the very insulting knowledge that I’ve bored you to sleep!”

  She had been vaguely aware of the gradual loosening of the hard tension of Rand’s body and that his arms were now cuddling her with the almost sexless affection of a small boy with his favorite teddy bear.

  “Oh, you managed to keep me awake,” she said demurely, as she snuggled her head in her favorite hollow by his collarbone. “Barely.”

  She felt his chest vibrate as he chuckled. “God, you’ve gotten saucy. I can hardly recognize you as the shy little gypsy I snatched two weeks ago. You’ve got me reeling most of the time these days from one cause or another. Either it’s that stinging nettle of a tongue or that delightfully passionate responsiveness.”