“My bathrobe.”
“Yours?” asked Alana, surprised. “I thought it was Bob’s. The sleeves come down over my knuckles and the hem drags on my toes and—”
“—I’m such a shrimp,” finished Rafe, smiling.
“Rafael Winter,” Alana said, exasperation and laughter competing in her voice, “you’re more than six feet tall and must weigh at least a hundred and seventy pounds.”
“Closer to one-ninety.”
In startled reappraisal, Alana looked at the width of Rafe’s shoulders, outlined by firelight.
“Those are hardly the dimensions of a shrimp,” she pointed out.
“I know. You’re the one who keeps thinking that my clothes belong to Bob.”
Rafe’s weight shifted, sending a quiver through the bed. Alana’s breath caught as she sensed him coming closer.
“You’re such a tiny thing,” he said. “I’ll bet you got the hem all muddy. Unless you’re wearing high-heeled slippers?”
“No. Twice.”
Rafe looked at Alana. A smile made firelight glide and gleam over his mustache.
“Twice?” he asked.
“I’m five feet five. Not a tiny thing at all. And I’m barefoot.”
“Barefoot?”
All amusement was gone from Rafe’s voice. He moved to the end of the bed and pulled aside the sleeping bag until he could see Alana’s feet.
“There’s glass on the path from here to the main cabin,” Rafe said. “Not to mention sharp rocks and roots.”
He hissed a curse as he saw thin, dark lines of blood on Alana’s feet.
“You cut yourself,” he said flatly.
Alana wiggled her toes. She tucked her feet up beneath the warm sleeping bag.
“Little scratches, that’s all,” she said.
Rafe got up, went to the stove, and tested the water in the kettle. He had intended to make coffee, but when he found the harmonica on the kitchen shelf, he had forgotten about everything else.
Although the fire in the stove had long since died, the water was still warm. He poured some into a basin, took a bar of soap from the sink, and searched for a clean cloth. When he found one, he returned to Alana.
“Give me your feet,” he said.
“They’re fine.”
Rafe flipped back a corner of the sleeping bag, captured one of her feet, and began washing the abrasions with warm water. He sat sideways on the end of the bed, resting her ankle on his thigh.
“Rafe,” Alana protested, squirming slightly.
“Rafe what? Am I hurting you?”
“No,” she said softly.
“Tickling you?”
Alana shook her head, watching Rafe as he washed her feet and rinsed them carefully. Then he examined the cuts with very gentle touches, making sure that all the dirt was out.
“Hurt?” he asked.
“No.”
“I don’t have any antiseptic in this cabin.”
“I don’t need it.”
“Yes, you do,” countered Rafe in a firm voice. “Dr. Gene made a big point about how run-down you were, fair game for any bug that came along.”
“Dr. Gene is wrong.”
Rafe grunted, then smiled crookedly.
“I take it back,” he said. “I do have some antiseptic here, after a fashion.”
Alana watched while Rafe took rag, soap, and basin back to the tiny corner kitchen. He opened a cupboard and pulled out a fifth of Scotch. He knelt by the end of the bed, one of her feet in his hand.
“I’ll bet it stings,” she said.
“Bet you’re right. Bet that next time you go walking you’ll remember to wear shoes, tenderfoot.”
Using the tip of his finger, Rafe applied whiskey to the first cut. Alana’s breath came in sharply. He blew across the cut, taking away some of the sting. Then he went to work on the next scrape, applying Scotch, blowing quickly, his eyes and the whiskey glowing gold in the firelight.
When Alana’s breath hissed out over the last cut, Rafe’s fingers tightened on her foot.
“Why am I always hurting you?” he asked.
Pain turned in his voice, tightening it into a groan. He bent his head until he could kiss the delicate arch of Alana’s foot. His lips lingered on her skin in silent apology for having caused her pain, no matter how necessary it might have been.
One hand cradled the arch of her foot, warming her, while the other hand stroked from the smooth skin at the top of her foot to the graceful curve of her ankle. He caressed her warmly, hands and mouth moving over her, savoring the heady mixture of Scotch and her sweet skin.
“Rafael,” cried Alana softly.
Her toes flexed and curled against his palm with an involuntary sensual response.
Rafe’s whole body tightened as he fought a short, savage battle with himself for control. With an invisible shiver of rebellion, his hands obeyed the commands of his mind.
Swiftly he put Alana’s feet under the sleeping bag and tucked it around her.
“Rafe . . .?”
Without answering, he stood and went to the fire. Using swift, abrupt motions, he added wood to the fireplace until the flames rushed upward into the night with a sound like wind. Only then did he turn from the savage leap of flames to face Alana.
“Warm enough?” he asked neutrally.
“No.”
She shivered slightly, watching Rafe with dark eyes, wondering why he looked so hard, so angry.
He crossed the room in three strides, grabbed the daybed, and pulled it closer to the fire with an ease that shocked Alana. Because he was so gentle with her, she kept on forgetting how powerful he really was.
Rafe turned away from Alana and watched the fire with eyes that also burned.
“How’s that?” he asked. “Better?”
“Not as warm as your hands felt,” Alana said softly. “Not nearly so warm as your mouth.”
Rafe spun toward her as though she had struck him.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice harsh.
Alana’s eyes widened. Then her eyelashes swept down, concealing her confusion and pain. But nothing concealed the change in her mouth from smiling softness to thin line, happiness flattened by a single word.
Rafe saw and knew that he had hurt Alana once again. He swore silently with a savagery that would have shaken her if she had been able to hear him.
“I’m sorry,” Alana whispered. “I thought—”
Her voice broke. She made a helpless gesture, then slid out from beneath the sleeping bag and stood up, pulling the robe tightly around her. His robe.
“I thought you wanted me,” she said.
“That’s the problem. I want you so much I get hard just looking at you. I want you so much that I don’t trust myself to be petted and then to let you go. I want you—too much.”
The gesture Rafe made was as curt as his voice.
“A thousand times I’ve dreamed of having you in my arms,” he said, “of loving you, touching you, tasting you, and then burying myself in your softness, feeling you loving me deep inside your body until nothing is real but the two of us and then there is only one reality. Us.”
Alana made a breathless sound that could have been Rafe’s name. His words had washed over her in a torrent of desire so consuming that she could barely breathe.
Rafe looked away from her to the fire raging in the hearth.
“I’ve dreamed too often, too much,” he said bluntly. “You’d better go, wildflower. Go now.”
Instead, Alana sank back onto the bed, for her legs felt too weak to support her. She thought of Rafe holding her, her body helpless beneath his strength as he became a part of her, and then she waited for the fear to come, freezing her.
Fire came instead, freeing her.
Slowly Alana stood. She walked soundlessly across the short distance separating her from Rafe. He stood with his back to her, his neck corded with tension.
When her arms slid around his waist, his whole body stiffened.
“I’m yours, Rafael,” she said softly.
16
A LANA FELT THE tremor that went through Rafe at her words. Then she felt the slide and flex of powerful muscles as he turned in her arms and looked down into her eyes. Watching her, waiting for the least sign of withdrawal, of fear, he closed his arms gently around her.
Rafe’s arms tightened slowly, inevitably, drawing her against his body. He gathered her close and held her with the power and hunger that he had fought so long to conceal from her.
Alana tilted back her head and watched Rafe through half-closed eyes. Her lips parted, hungry for his kiss.
With a muffled groan, Rafe bent his head and took what she offered, searching the softness of her mouth with hard, hungry movements of his tongue. The force of his kiss bent her back over his arm, but she didn’t protest.
Instead, she clung to him with fierce joy, giving herself to his strength. She sensed that he was testing her, trying to discover if she would freeze, trying to find out while he could still stop himself and let her go.
Rafe shifted Alana in his embrace, holding her head in the crook of one arm and bringing her hips against him with the other. She answered with a soft moan and a supple movement of her body that sent whips of fire flicking over him.
Despite the passion and power of Rafe’s embrace, he was careful not to lift Alana off her feet. He didn’t want to test either of them to that extent, for he suddenly knew that he couldn’t let her go.
He had dreamed of Alana too long, and this was too much like his dreams, cabin and firelight and her sweet, passionate abandon in his arms.
“You aren’t afraid,” Rafe murmured against Alana’s lips, pleading and urging and asking at the same time.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
Slowly Alana turned her head from side to side, rubbing her moist lips over Rafe’s, savoring the heat and life of him.
“You were never the one I feared,” she whispered.
Alana felt one of Rafe’s strong hands slide up to her neck, felt gentle fingers trace the gold chain he had given to her, felt the slight roughness of his fingertip resting on the rapid pulse beating beneath her soft skin. She sighed and softened against him even more.
His head moved and his lips slid down Alana’s neck until his tongue touched her pulse so delicately that he could count her rapid heartbeats. Then his hand shifted, sliding inside her robe until the firm curve of her breast fit into his hand and her heartbeat accelerated wildly.
“Yes,” Rafe said hoarsely. “This is my dream. Your response, your hunger, the way your nipple rises against my palm, wanting my touch.”
Alana’s body curved against Rafe, enjoying the hard muscles of his thighs, the heat of him as he moved against her, the texture of his flannel shirt beneath her palms. With a small sound, she slid her hands up to his head and buried her fingers in his hair.
“Winter mink,” she said, sighing. “Thick and soft and silky.”
She flexed her fingers sensually, shivering as Rafe arched against the caress, his whole body tightening against her, stroking her.
“I’d like to feel you all over me,” Alana said. “All of you. All of me.”
“You’re going to,” Rafe promised.
He bit her neck in a caress that was neither wholly gentle nor wholly wild.
“Every bit of you,” he said deeply. “Every bit of me.”
Yet even as Rafe spoke, his embrace gentled. The certainty that Alana wasn’t going to run away brought a greater measure of control back to him. He no longer felt driven to steal what he could before she became afraid.
Alana wasn’t retreating from his strength. She was coming closer to him with every breath, every heartbeat, every touch.
Rafe untied the heavy robe with slow motions. Then he took it from Alana with hands that cherished the pleasure of the moment and the woman who turned to him, smiling.
When Rafe dropped the robe onto the bed, the indigo cloth shimmered invitingly in the firelight. He didn’t notice. He saw only Alana and the soft, floor-length nightgown that was the color of a forest at dusk.
Tiny, flat, silver buttons flickered, reflecting the dance of flames. The silver flashes tempted Rafe’s finger to trace the shining circles from Alana’s throat to her thighs. His hand lingered on the buttons, gently kneading the slight, resilient curve of her stomach before continuing down.
When he stroked the soft mound at the apex of her thighs, her breath rushed out. He stroked more deeply, shaping the thin gown to Alana’s hidden curves, cupping her in his palm. She moaned and her fingernails dug into his shoulders.
Rafe laughed softly, triumph and hunger combined. And then he groaned as Alana’s satin heat reached out to him, spilling over him like sunrise.
“You tempt me without mercy,” he said, his voice deep.
“Look who’s talking,” Alana said shakily.
Slowly Rafe retreated, tracing once again the line of tiny buttons until it stopped just below the hollow of Alana’s throat. His fingers moved over the first button, trying to open it.
But the button was very small, very stubborn, and his hand was less than steady, for every breath he took was infused with the elemental perfume of Alana’s desire.
“This nightgown would try the patience of a saint,” Rafe muttered, amusement and passion mixed equally in his voice.
Alana bent her head to brush her lips across Rafe’s fingers. Her teeth closed delicately on his knuckle. Her tongue slid between his fingers, caressing the sensitive skin.
“You’re not helping,” he said.
“The neckline is wide enough that I don’t bother with the buttons.”
“But I’ve dreamed so many times of undressing you slowly, so slowly . . .”
When Alana looked up, Rafe was smiling and very serious. The heat of his eyes made her feel deliciously weak.
“I’m going to enjoy each button, Alana. Each new bit of you revealed. And when I’m done, I’m going to look at you wearing nothing but firelight.”
The shimmering promise in Rafe’s eyes sent an answering fire through Alana.
“I won’t even touch you at first,” he said, brushing the back of his fingers lightly across Alana’s soft lips. “I’ll just look at you and remember all the times I could see you only in my dreams. I’ve dreamed of that, too, a dream within a dream.”
Alana trembled, caressed as much by Rafe’s words as she was by his hands.
Rafe saw her shiver, felt the warm rush of her breath against his fingers. He moved both hands to the line of buttons, but he became distracted when Alana’s breasts brushed against the sensitive skin of his inner wrist.
It felt so good that Rafe couldn’t resist moving his wrists lightly against her soft, firm curves. Alana’s breasts changed as he stroked her, until her nipples stood boldly against the tantalizing softness of her nightgown.
Rafe bent his head and caressed the tip of one breast with his teeth. The response that shivered through Alana made him want to groan with pleasure and raw need combined. He wanted to part her soft thighs and feel the silky heat of her welcome washing over him. He wanted that until he was shaking with his hunger.
But he wanted the dream, too. He wanted that even more.
Reluctantly Rafe’s hands returned to the tiny buttons. One by one he unfastened them until Alana’s skin glowed between dark green folds of cloth. She watched with eyes that also glowed, and her breath made soft, tearing sounds in the hushed darkness.
Rafe kissed the satin warmth of Alana’s skin, following the yielding line of buttons with his mouth. Slowly, sensuously, his tongue slid down her body, following the buttons that melted away, unveiling her for his caresses. In a silence that shivered with possibilities, he tasted the heat and sweetness of his dream.
He paused to cherish one breast, then the other, caressing her with teeth and tongue until Alana moaned and her fingers tangled helplessly in his hair. Only then did he continue down, his hands less steady, his brea
thing quicker, the taste and feel of her consuming him while passion pooled heavily, urgently, between his thighs.
With a swift, supple motion Rafe knelt in front of Alana, his fingers moving over the remaining buttons until they were all undone. Gently he tugged at the cloth. Soft folds clung to each feminine curve for breathtaking moments. Finally, reluctantly, the gown slid to the floor, yielding the secrets of Alana’s body.
For the space of several breaths, Rafe simply looked at Alana. Her skin was flushed by firelight and passion. Her breasts rose smoothly and their tips glistened from the caresses of his mouth. The rich contrast of her dark nipples against her glowing skin held his eyes for a long moment, and then he looked at the tempting midnight gleam of hair below her narrow waist.
When the tip of Rafe’s tongue teased Alana’s navel and his hands found the taut swell of her hips, she swayed even closer to him, calling his name. He closed his eyes, letting the sound and scent and feel of Alana sink into him, healing and inflaming him at the same instant.
He had dreamed of this so many times, of touching her until she was too weak to stand and then carrying her to the bed, caressing her softness intimately until she cried aloud her need for him.
But now Rafe was afraid to lift Alana, to carry her. He was afraid he would shatter both dream and reality with a single incautious act.
Rafe brushed his mouth across Alana’s stomach, savored again the sweetness of her breasts, taut and flushed with heat, beneath his hands. Dream and reality fused into a passion that raged at the restraint he imposed on himself.
Quickly he came to his feet, ignoring the hammer blows of desire in his blood, the talons of need raking him until he could count his heartbeat in the hardened flesh between his legs. With impatient hands he pulled off his own clothing and threw it aside.
At the sound of Alana’s swiftly drawn breath, Rafe turned toward her, suddenly afraid that she would flinch from the blunt, heavy reality of his desire.
And then Rafe stood motionless but for the tremors of hunger ripping through him, a hunger that increased with each instant. Alana was looking at him the same way he had looked at her, raw yearning and hunger and tenderness combined. Her eyes reflected fire as she touched him with hands that shook, wanting him with a force that made her whole body tremble like an aspen in the wind.
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