He stroked his gaze down to his right shoulder. Her head was cradled against its curve, damp curls framing her face. It shook him how slight she looked in comparison to his broad frame.
His heart beat faster, for he’d never intentionally hurt a woman. Even in the heat of passion it couldn’t be excused.
Twice today Roxie had demonstrated her courage.
The first time when she’d stood up to Yves with a tiny knife, the second when she trusted him enough to let him sit behind her, virtually placing her slim neck in his powerful hands.
That’s why he intended to take real good care of her now, to make sure her pleasure came before his own, and to erase the memory of Yves’s loathsome touch from her mind.
Warm runnels of water spilled over the backs of his hands as they explored the curves and hollows of her tender woman’s body, which had the added advantage of making Roxie writhe against his.
She sighed her approval as his hands shaped her waist, her palms sweeping down his hairy thighs.
The contrasts between male and female were unmistakable.
As she arched her hips in supplication, Mac’s finger slipped between her thighs. Her sighs held him balanced precariously on the edge of his unwillingness to let her spin into freefall.
Instead, he took her higher and higher still. Determined that when she eventually flew, he would take off with her.
Distracting her attention, he slid his fingers into warmth that would have been hot and damp without the tubful of water.
Roxie gasped as the feel of his hand breeching her feminine core caused her breath to quicken. He pushed farther, deeper, until her muscles tightened round him.
“You feeling okay, chérie?”
Her head twisted, rocked against his shoulder. “Oh ye-e-s, better than okay,” she moaned in pleasure.
He dipped his head, covering her lips with his own, needing to capture her next groan with his mouth. To take her expelled breath deep inside where his heart pounded.
Her lips clung as his tongue mimicked the journey his fingers took her on. The bathwater surged over them as she made waves. Pushing with her feet against the end of the bath, until she gradually rode higher against his erection.
Suddenly the soft, rounded cleft of her buttocks felt too damn good. Too much like the real thing.
With a shudder, he sucked on her bottom lip. Nipping, licking till it grew red and full from the attention. He couldn’t get enough of her taste, or the urgent drag of her tongue on his.
He felt her body tighten as the first tentative tremor rippled through her. No time to waste.
Roxie was trembling on the brink and he didn’t want it to crumble before he joined her.
Words were redundant, but he’d been brought up to ask, not take, so keeping his honor intact he growled in her ear, “Tell me you want me. This is your last chance to say no.”
Her nails dug into his thighs as she crushed his fingers with another muscle spasm. “You needed to ask? I want all of you, Mac. I want you inside me, now, before I explode without you.”
“You got it, chérie.”
Roxie twisted as if to climb into his lap. He stopped her. “No, don’t move. Leave everything to me. I guarantee you won’t be sorry.”
“Hurry. I need you.”
Her limbs squirmed in agitation until he had to clamp a hand round one of her water-slick hips to hold her. “Lie still, chérie. Let me do all the work.”
Swiftly, he lifted her legs to overlap his, then pulled her up higher against his chest.
Groin on fire, he felt the blunt tip of his erection probe the warmth his fingers had prepared for it. They came together naturally, easier than he could have imagined.
Exhaling a long, deep breath, Roxie slid down his tensed stomach, letting her weight carry her, sinking down his length as he thrust upward to meet her.
Heaven and hell encompassed a moment of time.
Enfolded in heat, Mac could hardly breathe as her female flesh surrounded him, teasing his erection with subtle movements. One more thrust, one more lift of his pelvis, and he filled her.
Gripping the sides of the bath, Roxie lifted her shoulders away from his chest close enough for his mouth to find the cord that ran down the side of her neck.
Eyes closed in the agony of passion, he alternately nipped then soothed while seeking command of his body, slowing the race to completion down. His control was short-lived.
Mac felt he might drown in tension as she moved against him.
This was the last place for second thoughts, for guilt. Yet, he couldn’t shift the feeling that he was the big bad wolf with his teeth at her throat.
Downstairs they’d had too many foxes in the henhouse and only one chicken. But as usual, he’d managed to twist it to his advantage.
What kind of a bastard did that make him?
Annoyed by the direction of his thoughts, he snapped his eyes open, stunned with the erotic intimacy of the view.
He could see as well as feel his erection fill Roxie to the hilt. Saw her lying open and vulnerable, awaiting his touch, his exploration. Saw how she trusted him.
If he’d been a better, more compassionate man, he might have taken less from her, but he wasn’t.
He was case-hardened and he needed her.
Maybe she would save his soul.
He reached lower.
The hard tip of his finger circled nerve endings so sensitive he felt his caress make them sing.
Roxie’s hips flexed, bowed, moved on him as supple as a piece of clay fashioned by his touch. Rocking in time with her movements, he felt his erection expand as she took him deeper.
Shuddering against him, Roxie emitted a low sound from her throat that called to the animal in him.
Mac’s heart jolted.
The hair at the back of his neck rose and his chest swelled with an emotion he’d never experienced before, or expected to again, urging him to roar, “Mine!”
The next moment, Roxie stiffened, as if scared by the fall that was coming. “Let go, chérie, let go. It’s okay, I’m here to catch you.”
He slid one arm under her breasts, holding her close even as his touch egged her higher, higher, no turning back.
Make the leap!
Mac’s last caress sent her over, his mouth catching her screams, swallowing them, tasting their fervor as she trembled through her climax, contracting around him.
Until, suddenly, there was no more time, no more control, his equilibrium exploded in a million pieces and raced to catch up with hers.
For long moments neither moved.
Mac lay, eyes shut, unwilling to spoil the intensity of the moment with words. He simply breathed her in.
As her scent seeped inside his skull, Mac knew making love with her was something he’d never forget. Yet, it was probably the biggest mistake he’d ever made, for her flavors, her passion, would haunt him for a lifetime.
Too bad it didn’t account for his knowing that if they got out of this alive, nothing, but nothing, was going to stop him making the same mistake over and over, loving her like this again.
The sun was shining when Roxie woke the next morning, as if making love with Mac had changed everything, including the weather.
His warm body lay along her back and his shoulder pillowed her head. She wished she didn’t have to move. Wished they didn’t have to face Zukah and the others, but as Mac had explained during the night, they were fresh out of alternatives.
She felt the palm of his hand rubbing her hip as his erection nudged her. “You awake?” The rough morning sound of his voice dampened her neck and the stubble on his face tickled.
“If I wasn’t before I am now.”
He drew her up hard against him as if making certain she knew of his condition. “I’ve been thinking.”
Roxie dragged her instep slowly over his shin. “Oh, is that what they call it?”
“Sorry, that’s not what I meant…not that I’d say no.” He patted her hip. “Though
, I was wondering what we ought to do when le patron gets here. And it would be better if you don’t meet. If this deal goes crazy, I want you safe, away from the fireworks.”
“That’s the worst of the two ideas you’ve come up with today,” she taunted, rolling in his arms, wishing there was something, anything she could say to persuade Mac to abandon the deal he’d been working on.
It didn’t matter that she knew he lived outside the law, or as the saying went, there was no honor among thieves.
She sensed that whether he knew it or not, there was a deep core of honor in Mac, and she couldn’t just walk away and let him be taken down by the jackals downstairs.
Tentatively, she told him, “But it will be four against one. I could even the odds…slightly.”
His chest shook. “What with? A vegetable knife?”
Yet she saw no sign of laughter as his hands clamped on her shoulders. His amber eyes crackled with an intensity that diminished the bruising pain of his grasp. “Look, things are going to go off here either today or tomorrow. When Sev—”
She drew in a quick breath as he stopped mid-sentence. “Who? I thought you didn’t know his name.”
He didn’t look her in the eye as he said, “I’m guessing, and it won’t do you any good to know if I’m wrong.”
Mac was lying. She’d been as close to him as two people could get, and although he’d kept quiet about the group he worked for, she had been certain he’d never deliberately lied to her before.
She huffed through her nose. “All right, don’t tell me. I can live with that, but as for me hiding while your life is under threat, that’s a coward’s way out.”
He threw back the covers and leapt out of bed, unequivocally naked, and mad as hell. “Can’t you get it through your head that the danger lies in you being there? I can’t look after you while making sure Zukah doesn’t back out on the deal. Get it?”
“I should think the whole neighborhood got it.” Roxie leapt out the other side, dragging the sheet, no longer comfortable to flaunt her nude body in front of a man who thought her help would get him killed.
She stared at his erection. “It would seem that’s not the only thing you get up with in the morning. I suggest two aspirins for your sore head.”
The rueful twist of his lips made an appearance for less than a second as he shrugged. “Low blood sugar, I’m hungry. We never got round to eating last night.”
It wasn’t much of an apology, but she’d take it at face value.
“I meant to tell you that since we’re almost out of food, they must be expecting le patron soon. There was only enough for a couple of days.”
“Well, that’s good news. Here’s what I want you to do.”
He began pacing. “You keep the door key with you at all times. If we get wind of the headman arriving, I want you to come upstairs and lock the attic door.”
“But I could be stuck here,” she protested.
“Not if you go down the backstairs to the study I told you about. They won’t expect it, and they won’t feel the need to watch the kitchen while I’m there with them. Any questions?”
Just one, she thought. When do I have to salute?
She hitched up her sheet and said primly, “I think you’ve made it perfectly clear that you don’t need my help.”
“Good, let’s get cleaned up and see if they’ll send Jean-Luc out to buy more food.”
But when they got downstairs, they discovered le patron had sent word he’d arrive the next day.
Jean-Luc had already been sent to buy food. And Roxie stopped pretending she was unhappy to be left on the sidelines.
Her worst fears were confirmed later when she unloaded the bag of produce and found part of that morning’s newspaper, Le Figaro, a weighty, intelligent paper with tightly packed columns.
Without making it too obvious, she quickly scanned the front page. What she read made the blood drain from her face.
Mac had bitten back the word that morning, but she’d heard enough. She’d guessed all along he was waiting for Victoire Sevarin.
It had begun with that glimpse of a famous château she’d recognized in the distance. When she’d added the coincidence of being kept in an old house with a single tower on the left-hand corner she’d been almost certain.
Grandmère had driven her past Sevarin’s house one holiday when she was young, pointing out this place as the home of their enemy. And during fittings, Madeleine Saber, his mistress, had gushed about all the money Victoire Sevarin was spending on his country home—for her, so she’d thought, poor fool.
Sevarin. Roxie would as soon clasp an asp to her chest as trust anyone of that name. Should she tell Mac?
The deputy minister of defense would recognize her just as easily as she would him, since he’d visited the House of Fortier frequently with Madeleine.
Roxie moved the vegetables around on the newsprint, surreptitiously reading more, then wishing she hadn’t as everything fell into place. Sevarin had resigned and a scientist at the research establishment he oversaw had committed suicide after it was discovered that a biotech weapon, supposedly destroyed, had disappeared.
The whole idea of the weapon Mac was set on buying scared her to death. How could she have fallen for a man who dealt in that kind of destruction?
By late that night, Mac was sure the change in Roxie was obvious only to him. You couldn’t become as close as they had been the past three days without sensing when something was up.
Yves hadn’t been near her all day, so it wasn’t that.
If anyone was in the doghouse, his name was Mac.
Once, when he’d caught her eye, he’d felt that if he touched her right then, he’d get frostbite.
The glance she’d swung his way had been that cold.
Something had happened, but what?
He’d counted off the hours, three since they’d come to bed, and still she tossed around, unable to sleep.
And it couldn’t be because she had a hard lump of a gun under her pillow the way he did.
Sevarin would be here tomorrow.
This could be their last night together, and she had turned her back on him. It was enough to make the meal she’d cooked turn to acid in his stomach.
After a bright clear day, the moon was riding high in a deep, midnight-blue sky and shone into the attic window, silvering her with moonlight. Needing to get to the root of her problem, he reached across to touch the cold shoulder she’d been giving him.
She jumped like a scalded cat.
“Whoa, chérie, you’re like a bundle of nerves that have been wired wrong. What happened today?”
She ignored him. Grabbing the blue quilt, she huddled on the edge of the bed and pulled the cover over her head.
If there was one thing Mac couldn’t stand it was the silent treatment. How could he fix things if she wouldn’t tell him what he’d done wrong?
“Is it still Yves? If you want me to tear him limb from limb, just say the word, chérie, and it’s done.”
His throat tightened, roughening his voice, “The thought of him laying a hand on you drives me crazy. The idea of another man touching you does my head in. So, put me out my misery here and tell me what’s wrong.”
His pulse beat loud and heavy in his temple as his imagination raced ahead of his words. This time he got a reaction.
Roxie flung the covers off and jumped out of bed.
It wasn’t the result he’d expected, but at least she was facing him at last. Any reaction was better than nothing.
As his father always said, “Women think men are mind readers, when all they really want is pointing in the right direction.”
“That’s better. Tell me what he did. If he put a hand out of place I’ll break all his fingers.”
She threw up her hands and shouted, “Pah, men! Only two things get through to you, sex and violence.”
Next minute she’d pulled the quilt off the bed and stomped over to the table in front of the window.
Mac followed, wearing only his shorts.
Cold air shivered across his skin, but it was the glare she hit him with that made the hair on his arms shoot upright.
Straight-backed, wrapped in the quilt and bathed in moonlight, she cut him to the quick with a glance that was ice cold.
A glance that told him he was on the wrong track.
It wasn’t Yves who had stepped out of line, it was Mac McBride, last scion of the Philadelphia McBrides, who never usually put a foot wrong where women were concerned.
Who had always been able to smooth-talk until they were once more wrapped around his little finger, his mama included.
Yet this time, when it mattered most, he didn’t know how to fix things and Roxie wasn’t tossing him any clues.
“If I’ve done anything to offe—”
“Oooh,” she snapped, “Don’t be preposterous. What good is an apology? You haven’t enough skin on your knees to get down and apologize to the whole world for what you want to do.”
She leaned a bare elbow on the table and thrust her chin toward him. “You may have thought you fooled me, Mac whatever your name is. But I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. Dead wrong! I know what you’re up to.”
So, it was no accident that Thierry hadn’t been able to find anything on her. Damn, now he felt ridiculous. He had fallen for the tricks of another agent.
The question now being, which side was she on?
Then for the second time since he’d sat down at the table, she caught him off guard.
“Did you know Sevarin had resigned?”
Chapter 11
Roxie only had to watch Mac’s face to know she’d hit the jackpot. Myriad expressions flitted over his features, ranging from genuine surprise to black anger.
So, it was Sevarin he was dealing with.
But did Mac know the false nature of the man? Did he know the name was synonymous with treachery and deceit or that the Sevarin family constantly played both ends against the middle?
Honeymoon with a Stranger Page 13