by Mallory Rush
Pulling her wrists to his lips, he kissed the abrasions marking her skin. "I'll tend this after you have the bath I ordered drawn."
He hadn't apologized for his behavior, and so what if wanting it was hypocritical. She wanted him to say he was sorry, not make a statement that sounded suspiciously like a master's dictate. A solicitous one, but a dictate nonetheless. He'd said it so smoothly, with an ease of command that didn't expect to be challenged.
"You'll tend this? After I take a bath you ordered?" She met him with a level stare, determined to assert some independence before he started taking his role to heart. "I can tend myself and draw my own baths, thank you, Mr. Slick."
"So the auctioneer didn't lie," he shouted. "You are a spirited wench! Now get this, my virgin possession. I said, I'll do the tending. And you will let me do it, like it or not. You will obey your master or suffer the consequences of your impertinence."
He grinned. Rachel couldn't believe his audacity. Why, he was actually enjoying this! Throwing himself into his part with relish while her disparity of position left her wide open to his whims.
"I'll most certainly do no such thing," she sternly informed him. "Now I suggest you leave before I scream loud enough to bring the servants running."
His low chuckle antagonized her. Her eyes blazed a path of outrage that he deflected with a spark of supreme delight.
"Why you arrogant, pig headed—" she sputtered. Pointing a shaking finger at the door, she placed an order of her own. "Get out! Did you hear me? Go away and don't come back until you can wipe that stupid smirk off your face. Do it before I scream these walls down on your head, you... you... dictator."
"Scream all you like, my hot blooded beauty," he boomed. "The servants won't save you from the master of the house." He hooked a thumb in the door's direction, indicating there might be prying ears. "Don't forget I am your master too. I own you, woman. Lock, stock, and barrel."
"Why, you—you... ooooh." She lunged at him, ready to punch him good for everything he'd done and that she'd let him do. She aimed for his nose, which seemed apt since he was rubbing hers into the situation he had the nerve to gloat in.
She was fast on target but he reacted with the reflexes of a street fighter. Rand caught her raised fist and jerked her against his chest. The sheet fell away and Rachel's heart turned over. Her naked breasts were pressed into his robe.
"Scream again," he instructed in a low, rough voice. She tried to but her voice was caught in her throat. "Then maybe you need some help."
He hesitated, then quickly loosened the folds of material to expose a large expanse of firm muscle and dark swirls of hair. His skin was warm, the color of coffee cream. Their nipples touched. Her breasts parted and rode against his. The way he held her to him rubbed their flesh together in a sinuous rotation, tight but shy of a crush.
"My way," he said in an intimate whisper. "Be careful, Rachel, or you might end up enjoying my way more than yours. Open your mouth and scream."
She did. She screamed in frustration because he assumed his role so effortlessly when she wanted something real and lasting. And then she screamed again because perhaps if he thought she was pretending she could convince herself too and he wouldn't stop what he was doing, making her breasts grow heavy, weighted. A healthy dose of self-disgust spurned her on, the ease with which he could play her tasting like a bitter truth shoved down her throat.
Even as her cries faded, the tingle spawned by the brush of his hair spread in widening concentric ripples.
"Perfect," he whispered. "Almost as perfect as your breasts gliding over my skin, so soft I could swear they're melting into my chest and you're feeling something more for me than you do for every other client. You do. Admit it."
"No," she said in a broken whisper. "No. It's—it's what you're paying me for. You're a job, my ticket up. After today, I don't even know if we can still be friends."
"In that case, we should be safe, shouldn't we? You have no emotional attachment to me and so even if I feel something very special, and dangerous, for you, we're both protected and Sarah's future isn't threatened. Though more than ever I wonder if she's really the one at risk, or if she's simply a convenient excuse."
The sound of footsteps sounded in the hallway and he shifted, hastily pressing her down into the giving cushion. His weight was on her, their upper bodies joined. And then he moved until he lay fully on top, his thighs hugging hers, his erection straining against the material to seek her out.
"Please, Rand." Pleading with him, pleading with herself because her instincts were screaming that she part her legs and discover the dark secrets yet to unfold, to take them and the resulting risks without confronting the truth he had suggested. "Get off of me. Get out. We'll pretend this never happened."
"Pretending's something that we've been doing too long. Since the first day I walked through your door we've skirted the edge and it's been about the hardest thing I've ever had to do, keeping my hands to myself while all I could think about was touching you, and touching you a lot more intimately than this." He spread her hair out against the sheet. The tug of his fingers against her scalp shot downward, radiating to her belly, and the place where she began to clench, to ache.
"You're forgetting about Sarah." Her only defense. She didn't hesitate to use it, clung to it like a cross to ward off an unholy vampire. They drew blood too, didn't they?
"No, angel, I never forget about her. Though chances are she's forgotten about me. Hold me, help me to forget too."
He said it so gently and with so much ache, she could feel her muscles go lax with the soothing flow. And then she remembered that he was most dangerous when vulnerable. She tried to resist but his lips were soft, feeling, asking for the comfort she wanted to give. She almost reached for him, the urge to grasp his head, kiss him in reassurance and soothe him with loving strokes, was so strong she hurt with the want.
But she didn't. She gave him a comfort that was safer for her.
"Don't worry. I'll find Sarah. You'll get it worked out. Then maybe you'll be the one doing the forgetting—about me."
"You're so wrong. We'll find Sarah, but together. You and I are partners, Rachel, not adversaries. And no matter what happens after we get out, I could never forget you."
No, she didn't think he would. But chances were he'd leave her. Patient's did cling to a physician in their time of need, only to regain their health and send a bouquet with a thank you note once the crisis was over. How easily it could happen with them. If it did, she doubted she'd ever recover. It was this threatening possibility that caused her to shove at his chest rather than embrace him.
Chapter 11
He bore down, all tenderness forsaken while demand spiked his tone.
"Don't push me away, dammit. You know as well as I do that what's happening now has been a long time coming."
"Nothing's going to happen except what we came here for. Get off me, Rand. You've been here long enough to satisfy the servants."
"The servants, maybe. But not me. I'm not leaving this bed until we've got a few things straight."
She renewed her struggles, frantic to avoid the confrontation. His hands were on her, grappling with her flailing arms until he manacled her wrists above her head in a single hand, his grip firm but unhurting. She squirmed but his body pressed insistently, pinning her down.
"Quit fighting me," he whispered sternly. His mouth was too close, so close the heat of his breath fanned her face and she felt more drugged than if she'd inhaled ether. Then she quit fighting, praying he'd say what he had to and leave.
"That's better." Better? She could only hope it wouldn't get worse. "Now we're going to talk and get some matters out in the open. We've been hiding behind this case because that's the way you wanted it. No more, Rachel. We're on new turf and my patience with the sham has run out."
"I don't want to talk." She turned her head into the downy texture of a pillow. He took the access of her neck, running his lightly bearded chin against it,
then soothing the slight abrasion with his tongue. "You're being unfair," she charged, trying to shift away, only for him to follow.
"I never said I was fair."
"I can't think when you're doing this to me."
"Good. Can I take that to mean that I am something more to you than a bank draft, a rung on the ladder you're climbing?" He released her hands.
"No." Her automatic denial was contradicted by her palms' refusal to obey her mental "Don't touch" message. They sought his bare skin, the flex of her fingers gripped tight his back.
"Liar," he softly accused. "Admit it. You're more distracted by what you're afraid to confront between us than any amount of distraction that would be there if you risked confronting it."
His words rang of truth. She was desperate to escape them; desperate not to. Once she owned up to them there was no turning back and that terrified her because she knew her own fate could prove worse than Sarah's. Rand had the power to take more than her innocence. He could break her heart.
Rachel forced her hands away from the warmth of his skin that she could easily grow addicted to touching and played the trump card that was wearing thin from overuse.
"As much as you want to find your sister, that's a risk you shouldn't gamble on."
"Maybe I'm gambling on the fact that you're a woman of depth, who would stop at nothing if she was committed to a personal cause. One that would do her best if she's got an emotional stake involved."
Rachel shut her eyes, feeling the bed beneath her, his weight so solid and good covering hers. But his words, the ones just spoken sparked a horrible suspicion. Oh, how she hurt to think it, that he might play her as heartlessly as he had his mean competition.
"If you're trying to barter my body and my emotions for a vested interest in your sister, you're not going to succeed. You can't manipulate me like I'm one of those commodities that you scarf up then liquidate to make your profit."
"Is that what you think?" he demanded. "Dammit, quit hiding your face in the pillow and look at me."
She shut her eyes tight. There was a sharp burn behind them, the threat of accumulated tears she would not cry.
The insistent pressure of his grip at her jaw forced her face from the pillow. His breath was warm, she inhaled spice and the hint of bay. How could she compete with this? He was older in more ways than years, and she was floundering. No, worse than that. She felt as if she were staggering, banging into walls and sliding headlong into a revolving glass door that was going too fast to escape out the other side.
She grappled for something, anything, to stop this crazy spinning that was more disorienting than the drugged wine.
"I'll tell you what I think," she said in a cracked voice. "Once this is over your old life will be waiting. A life that's as alien to me as mine is to you. You're a man who plays to win and bails out before he can sink. Anyone else on board had better be a good swimmer because they'll be cutting through the waves you leave in your wake."
He was silent for awhile, and then he whispered, "You cut me, Rachel. You just cut me deeper than any insult that's ever been hurled in my face or any knife planted in my back. Including the one you drove in our last day in Vegas. You're still twisting the knife and I'm still going against everything defining my life to tell you I do care. You care. Don't deny it. Just tell me what it is that makes you want to."
His genuine hurt touched her in a place that quivered in empathetic reaction. Her emotions weren't the only ones on the line and his honesty deserved the same from her.
"All right. It's because caring does go against what defines your life. Maybe I am more than a means to heal your missing person affliction or to gratify a mutual lust. But for me, it's not enough." She could feel his laser sharp gaze against her still closed eyes. She had to leave them that way to say what she had to. "You're driven by instincts when it comes to survival. Mine tell me that my ultimate lesson could come from you. I can't be a ship passing through the night for any man. And because I more than care, especially not you."
His uttered curse was soft and curt. "You're right," he said roughly. "It could happen. But unless you can find the courage to take the chance, neither of us will ever know if you can teach me something I'm needing to learn."
"And what is that?" she asked hesitantly, hopefully.
"It goes back to what you said about ships. After a long haul they can run out of steam. Even the streamliners, angel. Not an easy thing to accept when they like to think of themselves as autonomous. That is, until a sister ship comes out of nowhere and throws out a line."
He pressed into her. Deep and insistent was the grind of his need. With a small cry, she arched up, not meaning to but somewhere, somehow, she had lost her own command.
Her eyes opened to search his, to discover if they were open and honest or simply those of a man in heat.
Steamy windows. Open windows, open as they'd never been before. There was a depth there she'd sensed but sensed only. Staggering, yes, and frightful, because she saw him in all his darkness, beckoning her into his haunted, eerily vacant room.
"You know, Rachel, it's awfully disappointing when the line disappears before the captain can decide whether or not to take it. But I guess that's a moot point when the decision's already been made for him."
There was heavy disappointment in his statement that mingled with unmasked need. It touched her deeply, stoked a tender desire to share a mutual lifeline.
She touched his lips with her fingertips. His mouth drew taut with the stern clamp of his jaw.
"Who are you?" she whispered. "For once, Rand, tell me who and what you are."
"I'm afraid it's not that simple. In fact, since I met you, I'm not so sure myself. But I do know that at the moment I'm a man who's waging a real battle. You're innocent. I haven't been for a very long time." A struggle was taking place inside him, one she could feel in the sudden jerk of his hips, the coinciding slit of his eyes. "Right now I'm wanting to take you somewhere that I don't think you should go."
Her need to explore this unfamiliar path was great; so too was her fear. Rachel's convulsive swallow was dry.
"You're probably right. But before you make that decision for me, at least let me see the place that you go."
"It's a walk. A walk on the dark side." He smiled without warning. A chilling smile she sensed was meant to frighten her away from this particular danger he posed. She didn't recoil as she knew she should, but stared at him as though she were a doe paralyzed by a spotlight in the night.
"You really want to know who and what I am? Then welcome, angel, to one very intimate facet of me. If you're wise, you'll steal a glimpse and leave it at that. Take my warning as a sign that you're not a passing ship."
Her palms bracketed his shoulders. She was straddled between the urge to grip him to her, to rush headlong without looking back, and the realization she should heed his warning and shove him away while he granted her the chance.
"Why do I get the feeling that you're trying to protect me from yourself? That part of you is so good it's the real danger. But another man is the one who's moving against me, tempting me to stay and take the risk."
"You see too much and you see too deep." His lips bore down on hers, plundering in no polite way. She responded before giving herself the option of escape, letting him take her down, down to a place where there was no light, just this blind spot where she groped for the feel and taste and smell of him. But then he was pulling back, done with his ravaging, and slowly shaking his head.
"Run, Rachel. Run while you can. Against everything I want, I'm giving you a head start. Take it. I'll catch up, but by then you'll be much safer, if not out of my sight. You deserve that much, even if it's more than I want to give."
"I see through you, Rand." She threaded her fingers through his hair, the vibrancy of it clean and thick and arousingly rich. "Heaven help us both because I'm still here."
"So you are." The temperance she had sensed, had read behind the inky blackness, retrea
ted, leaving a gleam of danger that both beckoned and menaced. "You're either very brave or very foolish, Rachel. Because I'm ready to give you a closer look at just who you're dealing with. A man who knows when a woman's aroused and that you are in no small way. It would be so easy for me to touch you, just so..."
He insinuated his hand between their bodies and stroked her cleft. The teasing whisper escalated into a merciless vibration. She cried out. She arched and her body shook as though in the grip of a palsied madness. His expression hardened with some purpose she was too far gone to care about.
"Help me," she moaned. "Protect?" And then she clenched his shoulders, the broad slope looming above her. "Ahhh..."
"That's right. I could have you right now and well don't I know it." Swift and sure was the glide of his finger into her entry. The sensation was too great, and painfully unsatisfying.
"It's not enough. What you're giving me, it's not enough."
"No, angel. It's more than I've ever given any woman before." He began to slightly thrust. Gently. With guarded strength. "You said I was no different today than those other barbarians. But I'm going to prove to us both that you were wrong. That I can feel this soft heat inside you and leave it at that. Because there's so much more that I need, something you've got that I've lost. If I can manage this, just maybe I can get it back. Believe it or not, I am protecting you now."
"Rand," she sobbed. "Please, Rand, I can't stand it. You're making me hurt inside. Where you're touching me. But even more, here. In my heart. Don't do this to me, not unless you can be what I need."
"Unless I know what that is, I can't give it. Tell me what you need and don't hold out."
"You," she cried brokenly. "You. But I want it all and I don't know if you're able to give it."
"Neither do I. Yet." His strokes gathered momentum, now fuller, deeper, a tactile invasion that made her reach with each retreat and weep for his possession. "More than anyone could possibly know, I do care about Sarah," he said in a voice ragged with frayed restraint. "But I also care about us. In fact, I care enough not to strip off my clothes and take what my body's demanding. I'm stopping this right now, Rachel, while I still can. Protection. From me."