“Five glorious days of vacation,” she said.
“When?”
“Beginning right now.”
Linc looked at his watch.
“Well,” Holly admitted, “it’s only four days, actually. Today’s about gone.”
He glanced around the luxurious, obviously expensive suite that Royce Productions had rented for Holly.
“Does that mean we’re evicted?” he asked dryly.
She shook her head with enough force to make her hair ripple and gleam like black water.
“Roger told me that we can stay here if we like,” she said.
“Civilized of him,” Linc said neutrally. “But then, Roger is nothing if not civil.”
Restlessly Holly moved toward him. She had no illusions about the “civility” he and Roger shared.
She also had no intention of discussing it. Not now.
There were more important things to talk about than rehashing Roger’s futile attraction to his top model.
But how to begin? Holly asked herself.
With a flash of wry insight, she wondered if Linc felt the same way about opening this particular conversation.
Maybe that’s why he keeps putting things off, she thought. Maybe he doesn’t know what to say.
She went and stood beside the bed. The temptation to reach out and comb her fingers through the pelt of hair on Linc’s chest was so great that she put her hands behind herself and locked her fingers together.
Not now, she told herself firmly. This time I won’t let him distract me.
Heat shimmered in the pit of her stomach as she remembered just how deliciously distracting he could be.
“I told Roger you’d probably want to go home,” Holly said.
Linc glanced out the window. For a minute he studied the unsettled, slowly seething sky.
“The weather might have other plans,” he said.
“Roger checked. Unless the center of the storm comes right through here, none of the flights will be canceled.”
“What are the odds of the center missing us?”
“Pretty good, but most of the crew is flying out now. They have families waiting.”
Linc turned back to Holly.
“Are you really off the leash?” he asked skeptically.
She hesitated. As the Royce Reflection, she was essentially on call twenty-four hours a day, every day.
At first that had angered Linc. He had made a lot of sharp remarks about how short a leash Roger kept on Holly. Then Linc had noticed that everyone else kept the same hours.
After that, he had simply ignored the subject, accepting her long hours with outward indifference.
“I’m off the leash like you’re off the leash at the ranch,” she said finally.
“Meaning?”
“I’m free until something goes wrong. Or in my case, right.”
Linc raised his eyebrows.
“Such as?” he asked.
“Whenever the ad company finally brings in the perfume campaign Roger wants,” Holly said, “I’ll have to fly to whatever place they’ve picked as a suitable backdrop.”
“Hasn’t Roger heard of studio shots?”
“He loathes them. Says all that control kills the sensual surprise.”
Linc grunted and gathered up his papers.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” she said guiltily. “I know you must be getting behind in your work by staying down here with me.”
Saying nothing, he stacked the books and papers on the bedside table. Without warning, he reached out, grabbed her lightly, and pulled her onto the big bed.
Off-balance, she fell across his lap. Before she could recover, his mouth was on hers.
“Mmmm,” Linc said. “Peppermint.”
He licked Holly’s lips appreciatively.
A familiar warmth spread throughout her in shimmering waves.
It would be so easy to let go of all worry about the future, she admitted silently.
It would be so easy to succumb to him, to let herself be like clouds gathered against a mountain’s hard planes, filling with sweet violence until the world shattered into lightning and thunder rolled and rain came down, fusing cloud and mountain into a single ecstatic being.
It would be so easy. . . .
And so foolish.
If Linc and I don’t talk, really talk, Holly told herself desperately, one day I’ll wake up and find that he’s gone, taking my love with him.
And never believing it. Never believing in my love.
Reluctantly she turned away from his caressing mouth.
“Linc, we have to talk.”
“Later,” he murmured.
He shifted her in his arms so that she was held against every inch of his body. The long, blunt ridge of his hunger pressed against her belly. She shivered with the desire only Linc had ever discovered and freed within her.
“When?” she asked, her throat tight.
“When what?”
The tip of his tongue teased the curve of her ear. Teeth nibbled sensuously.
“When will we talk?” she asked.
“Tomorrow.” Linc’s voice was husky. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Holly steeled herself against the fiery pleasure sliding through her veins with each caress.
“You’ve said that before,” she whispered, turning away.
He caught her chin in his hand. Gently he pulled her back to face him.
“What’s the hurry?” he asked. “Tomorrow will always be there.”
“And we’ll always be here, won’t we?”
Linc’s fingers tightened on her chin until she couldn’t move.
“Are you tired of me already?” he asked, his face as neutral as his voice.
For an instant Holly was too shocked to speak. Then she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him fiercely.
“I’ll never be tired of you,” she said. “I love you!”
She felt him stiffen in rejection.
Fear returned to her in cold waves. Until Linc believed in her love, he would never believe that his own love would be safe with a beautiful woman.
Somehow I have to make him believe that I love him, Holly thought desperately. Somehow . . .
They needed to talk about her love and many other things, unhappy things like his childhood and his fear of trust.
Yet the only communication Linc permitted was the wordless language of sensuality.
So be it, Holly told herself. If that’s the only way to get past his defenses, I’ll just have to do a better job of it than I have been.
She slid away from him.
He made no effort to hold her.
Fear closed like a vise around Holly’s heart. Slowly she began taking off her clothes. She didn’t stop until she was as naked as the clouds gathering beyond the windows, clouds looking for mountains to call down their rain.
“I know you don’t believe me,” Holly said, her voice soft, urgent. “You think words are nothing, less than breath.”
“Holly—” Linc began impatiently.
“No,” she interrupted. “Let me love you.”
She looked down at him, her tawny eyes huge with her need to make him understand.
“Listen to my hands, to my body,” she said. “Let me show you my love. Then you’ll have to believe me. Please, Linc. Listen . . .”
Surprised by the intensity of her plea, he went still.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“Lie down.”
“Will that help me to hear better?”
“I hope so,” Holly said.
With an odd half-smile, Linc stretched out on the bed.
“All right?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Now what?” he asked.
“I don’t get to touch you as much as I want,” she said.
He looked surprised.
Before he could ask the question Holly saw in his eyes, her fingers slid deeply into Linc’s thick chestnut hair.
&n
bsp; “Your hair feels cool, like rough silk between my fingers,” she said softly. “I like touching it, looking at it. There are so many colors in your hair, chestnut and bronze, molten gold, even black.”
Linc moved his head against Holly’s fingers, caressing her in return.
She leaned over and inhaled deeply.
“Your hair smells good,” she said, “like twilight rain with the heat of the desert welling up from beneath.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the feel of his hair sliding over the sensitive skin between her fingers.
Linc felt the intensity of her concentration. He had to fight not to grab her and bury himself in her, seeking the hot, sensual oblivion where tomorrow never came.
“Holly,” he said huskily.
“No. Not yet. Let me love you, just this once. Let me touch you. Promise me?”
A ripple of emotion went through Linc.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll try. But I’ve never . . .”
He shrugged and said nothing more.
Holly smiled almost sadly, for her heart heard what Linc had left unsaid.
He had never let a woman make love to him.
“I promise I won’t hurt you,” she said.
Linc would have laughed but for the shadows in her beautiful golden eyes.
Delicately, then with greater confidence, her fingertips rubbed over his scalp. She sought out and loosened tight muscles, hoping to ease the tension in him that had nothing to do with physical hunger.
Linc sighed and closed his eyes, giving himself over to the pleasure of Holly’s knowing fingers.
After a time she kneaded down toward his neck, then back up, until he sighed again and relaxed even more.
Gently she traced the outer edge of his ears with her fingernails.
His breathing shortened.
With a soft laugh, Holly leaned down and nuzzled his ear.
“I wondered if you were as sensitive there as I am,” she whispered.
Her breath was another kind of caress against his ear. The tip of her tongue touched lightly, searching and finding every sensitive point. Then, slowly, her tongue probed and retreated, probed and retreated in a rhythm he had taught her.
Suddenly Linc’s arms pinned her against his body.
“Holly—”
His voice was too thick with hunger for him to say more.
Her teeth closed not quite gently on the rim of his ear.
“You’re supposed to listen,” she reminded him. “You can’t listen if you’re touching me.”
“I don’t know how much of this ‘listening’ I can take,” he muttered.
“I’ve hardly started. Listen to me, Linc. Please, listen.”
Reluctantly his arms loosened, allowing Holly the freedom of his body again.
“There’s so much more I want to tell you,” she said.
Holly’s teeth moved down from Linc’s ear to trace the strong tendons of his neck. Her palms massaged the swell of muscle where neck and shoulders joined.
He shifted against her touch like a cat.
“What are you telling me?” he asked huskily.
“That I love your neck and shoulders. The muscles fit so perfectly against my palms. It feels . . . complete . . . when my hands curve around you.”
Linc closed his eyes, afraid to keep looking at Holly. He didn’t know if he could keep from reaching for her again.
The aftershave he wore was so subtle she couldn’t smell it until her lips rubbed over his neck. His freshly shaved skin was neither soft nor rough, simply very masculine in its texture.
She savored his skin with an unhurried kiss, then sighed and moved upward to nibble on his chin.
Linc opened his eyes, wanting to see the light in Holly’s, hoping that there would be no shadows.
Her eyes had never looked more beautiful.
Or more shadowed.
“But I’m getting ahead of myself,” she said.
“Ahead?” he asked, only half-teasing. “If you go any slower I’ll be gnawing on my knuckles.”
Holly put her fingers over his lips in a caress that also silenced him.
“I haven’t even mentioned your eyes,” she said. “They’re whiskey with emerald glints, and those eyelashes . . .”
She kissed Linc’s eyelids before she gently caught his eyelashes between her lips.
“Unfair,” she breathed. “I’ve always thought it was unfair for a man to have such eyes. And your mouth.”
Almost helplessly, her fingertip traced his lips again.
“When I was thirteen,” she said, “I used to dream of what it would feel like to have those teasing, smiling lips kiss me. All those sensual curves and the hint of power beneath.”
“Thirteen?” Linc asked, shocked.
“Umm,” Holly agreed. “When I was sixteen I found out that my dreams weren’t even a shadow of your kiss.”
He started to say something, but she took his mouth with her own, making speech impossible. Her tongue explored his warmth with a thoroughness he had taught her.
She played with the rough surface of his tongue, savored the incredible smoothness beneath, and tested the hard serrations of his teeth. Then she tasted him deeply, rhythmically, repeatedly, while his body became hard and hot beneath her.
At last Holly lifted her head and sighed, letting the heat of her pleasure flow over his lips.
“You still taste like sage and rain and lightning,” she said.
Blindly Linc’s lips sought hers again. She laughed softly, eluding him.
“You promised,” Holly said.
He took a ragged breath.
“Is it too late to plead insanity?” he asked almost roughly.
“Much too late.”
Her mouth shifted to his shoulder. She put her teeth against the resilient muscles, biting with just enough force to arouse rather than to hurt.
It was another of the many things Holly had learned from Linc. It gave her intense pleasure to use what he had taught her, giving back the joy of his teaching.
Her hands smoothed down the line of his arms, cherishing each hard shift of muscle under his skin, the steel beneath the silk. In slow motion her hands moved over his chest.
“Your strength fascinates me,” Holly said. “Things that I can’t budge, you lift casually. Strength to make or break a world . . .”
Her eyes darkened, a shadow of her own vulnerability.
“So different from me,” she whispered.
Linc heard the thread of fear in her voice and thought she was remembering their first time together.
“I would never have hurt you if I had known,” he said.
“I know that.”
“Do you really?” he asked urgently.
“Yes.”
“But for a moment just now you looked almost . . . afraid.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Listen to me, Linc,” Holly whispered. “Listen to what my touch tells you.”
Her fingertips found his flat nipples. She bent down and licked him with teasing strokes. His flesh gathered into tiny, hard points. When she caught one nipple between her teeth, his breath came in sharply.
“Different,” she said huskily, “but alike again. You’re sensitive there, too. Do you feel hot wires all the way to the pit of your stomach when I do this?”
She sucked on his nipple with lips and tongue, giving back the caresses he had given to her so many times before.
When Linc could bear it no more, his hands closed like a vise on her cheeks, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were smoky with desire. He searched her face for long moments.
Then he took her mouth in a kiss that was all the more overwhelming for its restraint.
“Does that answer your question?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “But I have so many more questions. Will you let me ask them in my own way? And will you listen, really listen, with all of your heart?”
Holly saw uneasin
ess grow beneath the desire in Linc’s eyes. It was as though he had finally sensed just how much was at risk.
Body and mind and soul.
Breath held, she waited for his answer.
Twenty-four
Slowly Linc released his hold on Holly.
“If I had known what I was getting into,” he said, “or rather, what I wasn’t getting into, I’d never have promised.”
She blinked, not understanding at first.
When she did, she laughed against his chest. Then she bit him with great care.
“You’re killing me,” he said hoarsely.
“I don’t think so.”
“I do!”
“Your heart is beating quite nicely,” she said. “I can feel it beneath my tongue.”
She slid down Linc’s body, catching his chest hair between her fingers and lips.
He breathed a soft curse.
“I like your hair,” Holly said huskily, “but I’ve already said that, haven’t I? Rough and soft at the same time, springy, it tickles almost as nicely as your tongue.”
Her fingertips traced the muscles of his torso to the edge of the towel.
Linc couldn’t contain the shudder that went through him any more than he could control the blunt arousal that leaped subtly with each heartbeat.
“Different again,” Holly said. “So powerful . . .”
His breathing shortened as her tongue found and teased his navel, stabbing lightly.
“But we’re alike here,” she murmured. “Sensitive.”
She followed the line of dark hair from Linc’s navel to the edge of the towel.
He waited with breath held. Then he let out a ragged sigh when Holly left the towel in place.
The mattress shifted as she moved to the foot of the bed.
“I’ll get even, you know,” Linc said huskily. “I ache from head to heels.”
“Ten toes,” she said, laughter in her voice. “That’s the same for both of us.”
She nibbled reflectively on his big toe.
“That tickles,” he said. “Tickling definitely wasn’t part of my promise.”
Smiling, Holly relented. She caught his foot in her hand and rubbed up to his ankle, knowing that a firm touch wouldn’t tickle him.
“I like your feet,” she said. “Strong. But then, all of you is strong. A strength you take for granted.”
Linc’s calf flexed against her kneading fingers. He wasn’t protesting her touch. He was enjoying it. Looking at himself through her eyes as she outlined and tested each muscle made him understand his own strength for the first time.
Desert Rain with Bonus Material Page 22