"I want you to stop making love to me!" She was lying through her teeth but she spoke the words with considerable forcefulness.
He stilled for an instant and Dara, too, froze, waiting for his reaction. When his head eventually lifted and his eyes met hers with a directness that sent a shiver through her limbs, Dara almost called back her own words. Almost but not quite. The future was what mattered between them. To preserve that she had to protect the present
"Are you sure that's what you want honey?" he murmured coaxingly, his hand softly cupping one breast.
"I'm...I'm sure," she vowed, unable to look away from the seductive expression in the hazel gaze. "Please, Yale."
"I bet you sell a lot of stock with that earnest little look, don't you?"
"Yale!"
He sighed. "You're old enough to know better than to play with fire, Dara."
"I never meant things to get so out of hand," she said contritely. "I only wanted to know more about you and somehow..."
"Couldn't resist opening Pandora's box, could you?" He grinned, leaning back against the pillows. She felt the sexual tension seep out of him and drew a deep breath of relief—relief tinged with regret, she was forced to admit privately.
"Was all this in the nature of teaching me a lesson?" she complained ruefully.
"No," Yale growled, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "I suppose I'd forgotten a few of the things that were still in the box, myself." His eyes closed and suddenly he looked tired.
"How long did you drive a truck, Yale?" Dara asked, knowing quite suddenly that she was safe.
The amber lashes flicked open immediately and hazel eyes gleamed in warning. "You really don't know when to stop, do you? Your curiosity must have gotten you into a lot of trouble over the years!"
"Not really. I've never been quite this curious about another person before!' she confessed.
He stared at her for a moment and then growled a soft command. "Go to sleep, Dara."
A little belatedly, perhaps, Dara acknowledged that it was time to stop. Without another word, she pulled away from the inviting proximity of his body, her hand brushing awkwardly against the material of his jockey shorts. Curling on her side with her back to him, Dara forced herself to stare at the wall until her eyes finally closed in sleep.
But her dreams were filled with fleeting promises of a happiness she craved, a happiness connected with a hazel-eyed man with honey-amber hair. In sleep her body remembered the feel of his hands, the strength of his chest and thighs and the laughter which sparked to life occasionally in the hazel gaze. There had never been a man like this one in her life, and he had even managed to invade her dreams.
It wasn't the morning sun which called Dara out of a warm sleep some time later. The shabby little motel room was still quite dark. It was a dream which was
moving her into a drowsy, languid state of awareness. A dream which had followed her back into real life.
Half asleep, Dara's body reacted luxuriously to the warmth of a hand on her thigh. She knew that hand. She would know its touch anywhere, and her body accepted it instinctively.
Blissfully she turned toward the source of the gentle, insistent demand, her legs parting of their own volition. The half-conscious feminine invitation was accepted immediately. The hand on her leg began lazy designs which led to the soft inside of her thigh and simultaneously her mouth was warmly, tenderly invaded.
It was like drinking hot spiced wine, she thought dazedly, her arms moving to pull closer the source of this smooth, heated seduction. Her fingers closed first on the hard thrust of a shoulder and then they twined themselves into short, thick hair. Hair that she knew intuitively was the color of dark honey. The perfect shade.
"Oh..." The moan was from her own throat, thick with a growing urgency. It was as if her dream was merging with reality.
The masculine groan which echoed her soft cry was low and hoarse with undisguised male need. She responded to it, offering herself in an age-old desire to please.
There were no words. Somehow, far back in her foggy mind, Dara knew words would have destroyed the dreamlike quality of the moment, and nothing on earth must be allowed to do that.
There was a curious floating sensation as the material which seemed to interfere with the searching movements of the demanding hands was slipped away. When it was gone, Dara felt the glowing sensation increase a hundredfold. This was what she wanted; this was where she wished to be tonight and every night.
Eyes closed, she let the accumulating impressions pile up on her senses. Gently rough fingertips glided along the inside of her thigh until they closed on the heart of her throbbing desire. The electricity coursed through her veins, causing her nails to bite deeply into a taut male shoulder and score their way down to a lean waist.
Silently she called his name over and over, and then the word was a low, audible moan on her lips. It was the only word allowed in that moment out of time.
"Yale, oh, my darling, Yale!"
"Dara, sweet womanly Dara. I knew you were dangerous the instant I met you! And now it's too late. Much too late..."
The husky confession pleased her enormously and Dara curled closer, her hips arching into the touch of his possessive hand, trading her feminine secrets for the satisfaction Yale could provide.
"Yes, sweetheart," he growled, his lips moving down her throat, pausing to caress her breasts and then trailing down even farther to bury themselves in her curving midsection. "Give yourself to me tonight. I want all of you. All you have to give...."
She gasped as he dipped a wet kiss into her navel and then moved on, stringing kisses along the flare of a hip. His hand slipped down to grasp an ankle, tenderly forcing her legs even farther apart, and then she felt his teeth first feather and then nip the vulnerable inner length of her thigh.
Convulsively, her fingers locked in the dark honey of his hair and her body lifted into his urgent, demanding lips and hands.
"Oh, Yale. Please, please..."
"Tell me what you want," he rasped thickly, sliding his hands under her buttocks and holding her body still while he rose to settle himself between her legs. "Tell me, Dara!"
The command was punctuated by tiny, velvet kisses along her stomach.
"Love me, Yale!" The cry was a feminine order of the first magnitude. "Please, please make love to me!"
He inched slowly upward, his hands sliding along her waist to palm her breasts as his mouth explored her silky skin in their wake. She was vividly aware of the heavy maleness of him, knew it would soon pour over her in a wave.
Hungrily she wrapped her arms around him, drawing him down into her waiting body. Her lips buried themselves in his throat as he loomed over her and she clutched at the tensely muscled back.
"I knew it had to end like this between us tonight," Yale gasped, shuddering as her hands clung to him, dragging him under into the rippling tide of her. "Sooner or later it had to end like this...."
"Yes, oh, yes," she panted, her breath coming in short, excited gasps that lifted her full breasts and crushed them softly against his chest.
Somehow it wasn't until she actually felt his unmistakable hardness against her that the last of the dream finally faded. Perhaps it was the stunning sensation of imminent masculine possession, or perhaps it was because she finally opened her eyes and took in the full significance of the cheap motel room. Whatever the cause, Dara was finally, fully aroused from her dreamlike state.
What was she doing? This wasn't the way she had meant to conclude the evening! It was too soon, much too soon! They needed time....
"Yale, no! Wait, please, wait! I didn't want this to happen...!"
"It's too late now," he gritted against her mouth. "I'm going to make you mine. There's nothing in this universe that could stop me!"
He fastened his lips over hers, silencing her protest, and then everything seemed to explode around and in her at once. He held her with fierce urgency, fo
rcing his tongue into her mouth even as his hardness took her completely.
Dara would have cried out with the ecstasy of it, but there was no chance. He dominated her awareness on every level, pulling her into the rhythmic surge of his body as if he would meld every inch of her with him.
Dara's fleeting moment of sanity vanished once more under the passionate onslaught. She couldn't think of the future when he held her like this, touched her like this, mastered her body with his own.
Deliriously she gave herself up to the thrilling wonder of the man to whom she had wanted to belong from the instant her eyes had met his. This was what she had been searching for all her life. This was the joy and exquisite excitement that had been missing from her short, ill-fated marriage.
Almost incredulously she felt her body responding in a way it had never responded before. Something tight and coiling was fighting to free itself deep in her loins.
Her hands slid down the violently arching male back, digging into the muscular flesh of Yale's buttocks and thighs.
"My God, woman! What are you doing to me!"
She reveled in the evidence of his unleashed need and sensuality, delighted in the now ungoverned response of his body to hers. His strength and power seemed to master her softness at the same time that they surrendered to it.
"I never knew..." she tried to say, "I never realized..." The words wouldn't come. How could she try to describe the indescribable?
Her teeth sank into his shoulder and her legs tightened violently around his rough thighs as the coiling passion in her lower body threatened to burst forth.
"Yale? Yale!" It was a plea. For what, she didn't know.
"Let yourself go, my darling," he whispered ur-gendy. "I'll take care of you. Just let go...."
Unable and unwilling to resist the demand in him, Dara gasped, reacting unbelievably to an unexpectedly swift and erotic movement of his lean frame. It seemed to send her over the brink of a heretofore unseen cliff and she plunged into the chasm below, free-falling toward a velvet green earth, Yale's name on her lips.
As if he had only been waiting for the turbulent shudder which suddenly racked Dara as she lay beneath him, Yale cried out harshly. She felt the primitive convulsion take him completely in its power, giving him to her in an astonishing and fundamental way.
Willingly, joyously, Dara accepted the gift, clinging and clinging as together they plunged into the soft valley below. He was with her in that moment, sharing the ultimate sensation which can be created between a man and a woman, and for Dara, that was all that counted. The future must be dealt with later.
Four
Languidly Dara attempted to move her foot, found it rapped beneath a heavy male leg and finally emerged completely from the sensual lethargy in which she had been drifting.
Her fingertips brushed a masculine chest and her soft gray-green eyes fluttered open to find a lazy pair of hazel ones watching her.
For an instant of silent communication, neither said anything, the recent memories mirrored in their eyes.
"I thought you were never going to wake up, sleepyhead," Yale finally murmured, his voice a deep dragon's purr in his chest. "It's been daylight for nearly an hour."
"You're in a hurry to go someplace?" Dara drawled, her mouth curving lovingly.
"Well, it did occur to me that there might be more interesting places to spend the weekend than this truck-stop motel!"
With a sexy, inviting grin, Yale rolled onto his back and reached out to haul her across his chest. It was as she came free of the sheet that Dara realized the green dress was no longer around.
The color rose in her cheeks as her breasts were crushed softly against him. She saw his eyes follow the outline of her, a look of satiated pleasure in the hazel depths.
"You drove me wild last night," he rumbled, raking his fingers through the tangled wings of her deep russet hair. "You're a dangerous lady, Dara Bancroft. Very dangerous."
She smiled delightedly, toying with the curling hair beneath her hand as she met his gaze. She was in love! She could hardly believe it. How could it have happened like this after all these years?
"I plead innocent," she whispered laughingly. "You're the one who carried me off into the night. If we'd done things my way we would have danced a few dances at that nice nightclub I took you to and then gone home very properly to our own beds!"
"Never!" he vowed fervently. "I wanted you from the moment I met you. Whatever happened last night, we would never have awakened alone."
"Hah! I don't think you wanted me all that badly at first. As I recall, you were rather annoyed with me at times!" Deliberately she made a joke of it, wishing he could have used the word she wanted to use. He must feel something more than desire for her after what they had shared. How could a man make love like that and not be at least a little in love?
"Being annoyed with you didn't change my desire to take you to bed." He chuckled, framing her face with his hands. Dara felt the strength in the gentle grip and shivered with pleasure. "I don't think anything could change that!"
"No?" she dared lightly, eyes warm with her love and laughter and the freshness of what she had discovered.
"No," he agreed solemnly. "Rest assured, my sweet. The account is yours."
Dara blinked, certain she had heard wrong.
"What?" Firmly she kept her smile in place. He was making a joke.
"My stock account," Yale explained easily, laughing at her incomprehension. "It's yours. I'm entirely satisfied with the transaction. At the moment, in fact, I wouldn't care if you lost all my money in the commodities market! As long as you're wilting to stand as collateral, naturally."
"Stop teasing me like that, Yale," she ordered carefully, some of the laughter fading from her eyes. "I'm not in the mood for that sort of joke. Not right now."
"What joke?" he demanded, shaking his head ruefully. "It's yours, honey, me and the account. I'm content with the deal and as far as I'm concerned it's all signed, sealed and delivered. I'll let you have the details you'll need to transfer it from my broker in L.A. on Monday. But right now we've got today and Sunday ahead of us to, uh, finalize the terms of our working relationship. What do you say we—"
"You're not joking, are you?" Dara pushed herself a few inches away from his chest, gray-green eyes widening as she stared down into his fiercely etched face as if she hadn't fully seen it until that moment.
"I never joke about money. Accountants rarely do!" he informed her loftily, eyes narrowing a fraction as he studied her tautening expression.
"Oh, my God!" she breathed as the full horror of the situation washed over her. He wasn't teasing her! He really believed she had slept with him in order to convince him to give her his account!
"What's the matter with you, litile tabby cat?" he rasped soothingly, stroking a rough fingertip down her cheek and into the curve of her shoulder. "I had the impression you were quite satisfied with last night's deal, too! In fact, I'd be willing to bet from the startled look on your face at one point that you hadn't known just how much pleasure you could find in your own body!"
"How dare you look so smug and self-satisfied! Who the hell do you think you are?" The words were tight, tense, barely audible.
Slowly at first the anger kindled. Fed by her own humiliation, it leaped to life, shattering Dara's conception of herself as a mild, easygoing person with an even temper. After thirty years, she was finally discovering the full significance of the red in her hair.
"Dara!" The command was given as if she were a fractious child. "Calm down...!"
"Calm down!" she blazed, pulling free of his hand and fumbling her way off the bed to stand beside it, glowering down at the man she had fallen in love with during the course of one wild night.
"Calm down! Don't you dare tell me to calm down!'
Yanking a sheet off the bed and leaving Yale's sprawling form nude in the morning light, she wrapped herself in some semblance of dignity. The gray-
green eyes were almost completely emerald now and the sun seeping in through the crack in the curtains danced in the halfhidden fire of her hair.
"You are a bastard, Yale Ransom!" she proclaimed as if pronouncing a curse. "And I am a fool! I freely admit that! God only knows where I got the idea we could...could mean something important to each other. Believe it or not, I'm usually a better judge of men than this! I haven't made a mistake of this magnitude since I thought the man I was marrying was in love with me!'
"Dara, stop it! You're behaving like a shrew. It doesn't suit you, little tabby cat. Come back to bed and let me show you...." Yale stretched out a hand, groping for her wrist.
"Don't you dare touch me, you arrogant, lying, impostor!" She moved back out of reach.
"Impostor!" For some reason he seized on that, mouth hardening ominously as he slowly sat up.
"Yes! Impostor! Cheat! Opportunist! The language isn't rich enough to supply all the words I need to describe you!" she gritted furiously. "Oh, I knew you were something other than what you were pretending to be last night. I knew you'd been a lot of other things besides an accountant, but I never guessed you were the kind of man who would use a woman and then pay her off by handing over money or...or your stock-market account!"
"Shut up and listen to me, you little wildcat," he grated, getting slowly to his feet. The hazel gaze flickered as she automatically backed out of reach.
"Don't get the idea I'm a bigger fool than I've already shown myself to be!" Dara cried, her chin lifting defiantly. “Listening to you was what got me into this mess! I don't intend to listen to you again! Ever! I try to learn from my mistakes, Yale Ransom. And you can rest assured you've just taught me one hell of a lesson! Even I can't quite believe how I could have made such an idiot of myself!"
"Good God! You're really intent on playing the woman scorned this morning, aren't you? But I haven't scorned you, honey. Just the opposite!"
"You've treated me like a...a commodity you could buy or sell," Dara hissed. "Last night you felt like buying it. Who knows? Tomorrow you might feel like selling it! What will you do then? Try to find another female broker who seems willing to pay the price? Let me give you a word of advice. Find someplace besides a dingy truck-stop motel to 'finalize' the deal. And the next morning, refrain from talking about the bargain itself until after breakfast. Much more civilized!"
Reckless Passion Page 5