Solitaire

by Lindsay McKenna

  A faint knock at the adjoining door made him turn. Slade’s eyes widened appreciatively as Cat silently walked into the room. A flood of heat uncoiled deep within him as he stared at the huge fuzzy white hotel robe she wore. Her hair was damp at the ends, indicating she’d just taken a shower.

  “Come in,” he said, motioning for her to sit on the pale blue Oriental couch nearby. He saw the high color in Cat’s cheeks and her unsureness. She was just as scared as he was. A load slid off his shoulders when he realized that, and Slade poured her some brandy, handing her the crystal snifter after she had sat down. Cat curled up, her long, coltish legs tucked beneath her body. Her hair was newly brushed and he could smell her showered freshness.

  “Thank you,” Cat murmured, lifting the snifter to her lips. The apricot scent flowed across her tongue, warming her mouth and going down smoothly, relaxing her in its wake. Cat watched as Slade sat down, his hip only inches from her knees. A hesitant smile touched her lips. “I think we both needed this.”

  “Yeah,” Slade agreed. He noticed that Cat still wore the opal ring and that gave him hope. “You’re wearing the ring.”

  Cat smiled gently, lifting her hand to study the iridescent colors of the oval gem. “How could I not wear it?” She held Slade’s gaze. “You didn’t have to make all this jewelry for me.”

  “Why do you think I did it?”

  The silence wove between them as Cat considered his quietly asked question. She struggled to answer. “I honestly don’t know, Slade.”

  “Guess.”

  She grimaced. “I’m not very good at guessing games. Why don’t you just tell me why you did it?”

  “Because I want to know what you thought my intentions were toward you.”

  Cat closed her eyes, pain in her voice. “Slade, you don’t make this easy on me. The worst possible reason you might have done it was to buy my forgiveness for tricking me into doing something you wanted from me.” She opened her eyes, meeting his opaque stare. “You know that, if nothing else, I try to be an honorable person. My word is my bond. You knew that by saving my life I would owe you. And you used that knowledge in a way that I’d never have expected.”

  He turned the snifter slowly around between his large hands. “All right, that’s the worst scenario. Any others?”

  “That the gift was a way of apologizing to me?”

  “Possibly. What else?”

  Cat heard the strain in his voice. “No. None that I can see. Is there another, Slade?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. All my life I’d been bitten by green fire, the dream of finding an emerald mine. There’s just something about the gem that fascinates me. I’d set up my entire life-style and reason for being a geologist to make the big find.” Slade pinned her with his gaze. “It wasn’t for the money, but just for the sheer challenge of finding such a rare gemstone. I got close in Brazil when I discovered the tourmaline deposits at El Camino. That just made me that much more determined and thirsty to find green fire. I knew it was close; I could feel it in my bones like a gold prospector can feel when he’s approaching a vein. I could taste it. And then, it happened: that poker game in Bogotà changed my life. Or I thought it had,” he added wryly.

  Slade held her unwavering gaze. “I then went in search of the very best mining engineer I could find. I sought you out. When I first saw you in that shack, Cat, I didn’t know what to expect. I never realized how beautiful you were, besides being accomplished and an expert in your field. The magazine photos didn’t do you justice. Anyway, when that cave-in occurred, I was worried for you. And those next three days of staying in contact with you on the radio slowly began to change me. It was subtle at first, and I can’t exactly find words to tell you how you began to affect me and my objectives. And then I found myself wanting you to myself for more than just professional reasons.”

  Slade placed the snifter on the coffee table in front of them and stood up, thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers. His face was etched harshly with conflicting emotions as he turned and continued in a low timbre. “For eight weeks, you lived with me. Until the day of our argument and my blunder trying to play amateur psychologist with you, I never realized just how much you had come to mean to me.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess I had given up finding a woman to share my world. It took something like this to make me discover it, Cat.

  “When I came back to the ranch, I went to my office and searched through every gemstone I’d collected over the years. I wanted to find something that would reflect to you just what you had become to me in this past month.” The tension in Slade’s face dissolved. “I didn’t make the opals as an apology or to buy anything from you, Cat. I was hoping they would show you what I hadn’t been able to do with any success, to tell you that you mean far more to me than green fire…”

  Cat touched the warm, fiery-colored opal, tears blurring her vision. “I’m sorry I thought the worst, Slade. I didn’t know…”

  He shrugged almost painfully and sat down next to her. “I haven’t exactly been good at expressing myself, either, Cat. And for that, I also apologize.” He reached out, capturing her right hand, holding her luminous gaze. “You were hurting so much inside from the trauma and the mine accident that I wanted to help you, and I blurted out the first half-baked idea that came to mind. I figured that if I could set you up under a condition where you’d be forced to face your fear, it would work out fine. I could see my idea wasn’t having a positive effect on you. I got panicky.” His words came out low and tortured. “The last thing I wanted from you was a payment of your life for the mine. My good intentions to get you to conquer your fear backfired. Sometimes, my mouth gets ahead of my thoughts. Or, at least, dealing with you it does.”

  Cat murmured his name softly, sliding her hand along his sandpapery cheek. “I shouldn’t believe you, Slade, but I do. There’s something that keeps drawing us back to each other no matter how much we’ve hurt each other. What is it about you that makes me believe you? What?”

  Slade closed his eyes, feeling the warm caress of her hand across his flesh. He brought Cat into his arms and she sank against him, trusting him once again. Nuzzling her neck and shoulders with a flurry of moist kisses, he inhaled her feminine fragrance. “I don’t know, sweetheart, I don’t know.” He felt Cat stiffen as he pressed a kiss between the cleavage of her taut, firm breasts before he raised his head. Reading her tender expression, he saw her eyes were lustrous and warm, with invitation in their green, sultry depths.

  “The past ten days have been hell on both of us,” Slade told her thickly. “You’re under no obligation to me for saving your life, Cat. I would do it a hundred times over. This mine down in Colombia has no strings attached to you or me. I don’t want you captive to me out of guilt. If you choose to become involved with it, it’s because you want to. I’m going to fly to Colombia Monday morning. If you want to fly down with me, fine. If you don’t, I’ll understand.” Slade stared down at her widening eyes. “No more pressure on you, Cat. Kai made me realize that no one has the right to tell you how to live your life. If you’re afraid to go back down in a mine, that’s something you have to deal with in your own way and time. I can’t force you back into a shaft before you’re ready. As much as I wish your life was in my hands, it’s not.” He feathered a kiss across her parting lips, tasting the apricot brandy on them.

  “Wait…” she pleaded breathlessly, palms flat against his powerful chest. “Slade…who would you get to put that mine shaft in for you, then?”

  “I don’t know yet. It doesn’t matter.”

  “But it does matter!”

  Slade’s mouth curved upward and he slid his hands up the sleeves of her arms. “Not right now, it doesn’t.”

  Cat licked her lips, trying to pull from the heated cocoon spinning around both of them. “Slade, listen to me. We’re not done talking.”

  He released her, sensing her concern. “All right, go ahead.”

  “You’re really seriou
s about this, getting another engineer?”

  “Yes.”

  Cat muttered something under her breath, searching Slade’s features. “Look, that mine is going to be tricky to build. You’ve got very movable layers of shale and limestone that can quiver like a dog’s back if there’s even a slight earthquake tremor. Not every mining engineer has the experience that I have in building one to withstand that kind of unexpected stress.”

  Slade wanted to embrace her, realizing she was putting his safety above her own fear. “I’m aware of that. And I’ll find someone who can do it.”

  Getting up, Cat paced the suite for several minutes. Finally, she turned to him, her face set. “Slade, I care what happens to you. I’ve just spent ten days preparing blueprints for the Verde. And frankly, there isn’t anyone who can build that mine more safely than I can.”

  “I believe you, Cat. But you don’t have to go. I don’t want you down there unless you’re sure you’re ready to tackle mine entry.”

  She gave him a frustrated look. “Damn it, Slade, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were using reverse psychology on me to get me to go down there with you!” She stamped her bare foot to underscore the depth of her feeling. “Not only that, you make me feel like a child! And no one has ever brought out those feelings in me like you have.” She knotted her fists. “I can’t live with you. I can’t live without you. On the other hand, I’m so damned scared of having to go into a mine that I turn icy cold all over.”

  He rose, barely aware of most of what she’d said. “You can’t live without me?” Slade asked, coming up and placing his hands on her shoulders.

  Petulantly, Cat shot him a withering look. “I said it, didn’t I?”

  “Really? You kinda like being around me despite everything that’s happened?”

  “I can’t live with you either, Slade. You drive me nuts. I used to be a stable, steady, sane person until you dropped into my life. I don’t know which way is up anymore. Or down. Or sideways. When I get around you, everything else just kind of fades and there’s only you…”

  His smile increased like the radiance of the sun rising as he brought her to him. “There’s you and me, Cat. Just you and me,” he whispered, molding his mouth against those provocative lips that were just begging to be tamed. “That’s all that matters…”

  A soft moan slid up her throat as Cat melted a little more beneath Slade’s caressing kiss. So much was happening at once. She could barely think coherently beneath his fiery, coaxing touch. A shiver of need jolted through her as his tongue stroked each corner of her mouth, a tantalizing promise of more to come if she wanted him. An ache grew deep within her and Cat realized that only Slade had the magic to bring her to surrender. He was barely caressing her and she could feel him controlling himself for her sake.

  Breathlessly, Cat eased away, seeing how his hooded eyes smoldered with a vibrant blue fire of their own. A delicious warmth flowed down through her as Slade lifted her into his arms. Cat sighed, resting her head against his, closing her eyes. “You’re not an easy man to understand,” she murmured.

  Slade looked down at Cat as he carried her into the darkness of his bedroom. “I know that, sweetheart. Let’s heal some of the wounds that still stand between us. When the sun rises tomorrow, we’ll both be the better for it.”

  Cat smiled as he gently laid her down on the quilted satin surface of the huge king-size bed. As she awaited him, he slowly undressed. Like the mountains carved out of the enduring earth, he was beautiful to behold. Every angle of his darkly bronzed body slipped like a well-fitted plane into the next. Slade’s chest was covered with a mat of dark, fine hair. His shoulders were broad, thrown back naturally, shouting of his rugged heritage. A sleek torso flowed smoothly into narrowed hips and long, muscular thighs to lean but finely sculpted calves. As Slade moved to her side, Cat whispered, “You’re beautiful…”

  She ran her fingers lightly across his shoulders, feeling his silent, coiled strength. Slade’s hands settled around her, moving slowly and sending a sheet of prickling fire outward toward her tightening belly.

  A growl reverberated in Slade’s throat as she slid her hand across his chest, following the wiry carpet of hair down across the slab hardness of his stomach to–

  “Cat,” Slade growled savagely, pulling her tight against him. He gasped, unprepared for the caress of her warm fingers around him. As he crushed her hard against him, he branded her lips with a fiery kiss, stealing the breath from her. The pebbled hardness of her nipples pleasantly chafed the wall of his chest, taunting him. In one motion, he slid his hand beneath the terry-cloth robe revealing first one breast and then the other. Slade gave her no chance to protest, smothering her full, glistening lips with another kiss. His long, teasing kiss demanded that she submit fully beneath his onslaught. Tonight, he wanted to please Cat as he had no other woman. Tonight was for her; tonight was for healing…

  Dizziness sang through Cat as she lay helplessly in the path of Slade’s ravishment. His lips created a trail of blazing fire from her earlobe, down her neck, across her collarbones and then… A gasp tore from her as his mouth settled over the first nipple. Reflexively, Cat’s fingers dug into his bunched shoulder muscles, and she arched her entire body against him. Fire rippled outward, as if a stone had been tossed into the quiet surface of a deep pond, until a powerful, aching sensation gripped her loins. Each sucking motion drove her farther and farther from rational thought. She was flung into a universe where only emotion ruled.

  Slade felt Cat’s surrender to him, the discovery filling him with potency. She trusted him entirely. He lay on his back and pulled her gently on top of him. The instant her hip brushed his aching body, a hiss of air came from between his clenched teeth. Her eyes were barely open, her lips wet with further invitation as he settled her above him. Slade saw vague confusion register in her desire-clouded emerald eyes. He kept his hands on each of her arms to prevent her from falling.

  “Your ribs,” he explained thickly. “If I lie on you, I could hurt you. And I don’t want to do that. For now, this is best.” Slade smiled up into the shadowy planes of her radiant face and placed his hands on her hips, helping to guide her. “Come to me, sweet Cat, woman of the earth, my woman…”

  A cry of pleasure tore from her as she settled down on him, her fingers digging into his arms. The fire that had simmered so long within her finally burst into brilliant life. One twist of his hips sent such a powerful tidal wave of pleasure that Cat sobbed. Together they were fused like molten, volcanic lava, each stroke, each movement a little deeper, more giving, taking and melding than the last. He whispered her name like a prayer given those who hold the earth in reverence. She felt him return all she meant to him in those shattering moments that tore a cry from within her. Cat went spinning off in a directionless universe of splintered sunlight. And then, precious moments later, Slade stiffened, groaned and clung to her as if to life itself. As she leaned down on him, her cheek against his warm, damp chest, she knew they had given each other the most precious gift of all.

  *

  Slade absently ran his fingers over her drying back, marveling at her natural beauty. Cat lay beside him, one hand across his chest, one leg across his. He smiled into the darkness. “Has anyone ever told you how giving and loving you are?”

  A quiver of pleasure spun through Cat as she languished in the timbre of his voice. “Not like you have,” she whispered, incredibly satiated and fulfilled.

  “Every time I hold a handful of warm earth in my hands, I can feel the life in it.” Slade splayed his hand across her shoulder, pressing Cat gently to him, kissing her damp temple. “I like you; you’re the earth. You’re warm, yielding, fertile and incredibly alive.”

  A soft smile played on her lips as she weakly ran her hand across the drying hair of his chest. “Then you’re the ocean: quixotic, mysterious and powerfully emotional.”

  Slade turned thoughtful as he eased to his side so that he could see her. He cupped Cat’s
cheek, watching as her eyes barely opened and focused on him. “Believe me when I tell you that I’ve never made such incredible love with a woman as I have with you.”

  Cat felt euphoric. “Do you always have the right words?” she asked in a wispy voice, content to close her eyes and simply drink in his touch, his honeyed tone and male essence.

  Slade’s chuckle was derisive. “No. You know that better than anyone. I’ve blundered and tripped all over myself with you. And like the earth, you’ve forgiven me.” He reached down, pulling up a sheet to cover them. He drew Cat into his arms, holding her gently for fear of putting too much pressure on her recently healed ribs. “My beautiful earth mother,” he teased her huskily. “Let me hold you close to my heart.”

  Cat nuzzled beneath Slade’s jaw, content as never before. For once, she was washed free of all her anxieties and fears. Slade had cleansed her; he had filled her with himself and given back to her. The last words she spoke before everything receded were, “You’re healing me, Slade…”

  *

  The sun had barely edged along the horizon when Cat slowly awoke around six o’clock, unsure why she had left the cradling embrace of her euphoric dreams. She lay quietly in Slade’s arms, a soft smile touching her mouth as he occasionally snored. One lock of dark hair had dropped across his smooth brow and she gently coaxed it back into place. For no reason, Cat was glad she was awake and Slade was still asleep. It gave her a chance to study him in the morning light.