Lone Wolf's Lady

by Beverly Barton

  He had given up hope of ever getting the chance to pay her back for what she’d done to him, what her family had done to his. But she had returned to Stone Creek and come straight to him. And tonight she would offer herself up—a sacrifice to his needs, a pleasurable retribution for her many sins against him.

  Deanna stood outside room 12, asking herself what she was doing there. But she knew. She was here because of Luke McClendon. Because he had named his price—her dignity and her pride—and she was willing to pay it. She was willing to sacrifice anything to learn the truth and to finally set things right. She had betrayed not only Luke with her weakness, with her inability to stand up against her family, but she had betrayed herself. She had allowed her mother to coerce her into doing something she knew was wrong—taking the stand against Luke. Even though what she’d said under oath had been the truth, as far as the truth went, her testimony had been crucial in Luke’s conviction.

  She couldn’t blame him for hating her, couldn’t fault him for not being able to forgive her. God knew, there had been years that she had hated herself. The first four years she’d spent at Millones. And even now, although she had forgiven herself, she could never forget the damage she’d caused. Irrevocable damage to the man she had loved. And despite what Luke believed, she had loved him. Loved him with the same mindless passion with which he’d loved her.

  Deanna’s hand trembled as she lifted it to knock on the door. She knocked once, twice. No response. Luke was in there. His truck was parked right in front of the room and the clerk, who had inspected her thoroughly from head to toe, had told her Mr. McClendon had checked into room 12. The clerk hadn’t smirked or made any unmannerly comments, but she’d recognized that look in his eyes. The censuring appraisal that had made her feel cheap and ashamed. The way he’d surveyed her body had spoken volumes, each silent word calling her a tramp.

  And maybe that’s just what she was. A tramp. A whore. Selling herself to Luke. Dear Lord, she hated him for doing this to her. Always with Luke the loving had been beautiful and true and right. Oh, so right! But he had made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t the same boy who’d taken her to heaven with his wild, abandoned lovemaking. He no longer loved her, no longer worshiped at her feet.

  With her stomach tied in knots and her heartbeat racing rapidly, Deanna knocked again. Louder. More forcefully.

  “Yeah, come on in. The door’s unlocked,” Luke said.

  Deanna sucked in a deep breath. He isn’t even going to come to the door! she thought. She let out the breath and sighed. If she had any sense at all, she’d run like hell. If she opened that door and walked into room 12, there would be no turning back. Not for her. And not for Luke. But she needed him. Her heart and her instincts told her that he was the key to regaining her memory.

  And Luke needed her. He didn’t realize how much he needed her and would probably deny it vehemently. But she knew, even if he didn’t, that without forgiving her for what she’d done to him, Luke could never heal. And that was the real reason she was here tonight, standing outside a motel room, garnering the courage to go inside and play Luke’s game.

  Deanna turned the doorknob hesitantly, and let the door swing slowly open, well aware that what awaited her might be damnation. Her own and Luke’s. She stood just outside the room and looked in. Luke was resting on the bed, barefooted and bare-chested, with his back braced against the headboard. The very sight of him took her breath away. She had loved a boy of twenty, who had made love to her with a wild gentle passion. But this was a man. Hard as steel. Big and broad and powerfully rugged. And blatantly aroused. The look in his smoldering green eyes held no gentleness, only hot, ruthless lust.

  “Come on in.” He stretched his muscular arms over his head, expanding the width of his broad chest.

  Deanna stepped over the threshold and closed the door, then turned to face him. He stared at her lazily, running his gaze down the length of her body, from neck to ankles and back up, lingering at her breasts.

  “Lock the door,” he told her.

  She obeyed his command.

  He glanced over at the digital bedside clock. “It’s five after nine. You’re late.”

  “I knocked on the door at precisely nine o’clock,” she said. “But you didn’t answer.”

  His wicked grin wreaked havoc on her nerves. Did he have any idea what just the sight of him did to her? No, of course not. He had no idea how she really felt about him. And she didn’t dare let him know. If she did, he was sure to use her own feelings against her. And Luke already had an arsenal of weapons at his disposal. The knowledge that she still cared deeply for him would be the deadliest weapon of all.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d show up.” He placed his cupped hands together behind his head.

  “You’re lying,” she said. “You knew I’d come to you, just as you asked me to do.”

  “You really are desperate for me to believe that you want to find out what happened the night your father was killed, aren’t you?”

  “Desperate enough to do whatever you ask because my gut instincts tell me that you’re the one person who can help me.” She laid her purse on the chest to the right of the door.

  Luke swung his legs off the side of the bed and placed his big, rough hands down on his knees. “Why now, Deanna? Why not five years ago or ten years ago? Why after all this time is finding out the truth so damn important to you?”

  She held her head high and looked him right in the eye. “The truth has always been important to me. It’s just that I couldn’t—”

  “Not always. It wasn’t very important to you fifteen years ago.” Luke rose from the edge of the bed. His eyes bored into Deanna as he walked toward her.

  “That’s not true. I told the truth.” Deanna instinctively backed away from him. “I didn’t lie on the stand at your trial. I’ve read the transcripts and what I said was all that I remembered at the time. I swear to you, Luke, I don’t remember what happened after you picked up that pitchfork and walked toward Daddy.”

  Stopping dead still, Luke grinned, but the look in his eyes was cold and menacing. “Why the hell should I believe you?”

  “I can’t make you believe me any more than I can make you stop hating me. You’ll believe whatever you want to, but if you give yourself a chance to get to know me—the woman I am now—you just might learn to trust me again and believe what I tell you.”

  Luke laughed, the sound deep and dark and sinister. He spanned the distance between them, laughing harder when Deanna backed up against the door. Never in the past had she been afraid of him, but now she was—very afraid. Not that he would physically harm her, but that the hatred smoldering inside of him would unleash his desire for revenge and he would rip her to shreds emotionally.

  “I don’t want to get to know you again, except in the biblical sense.” Spreading his hands out against the door, on each side of her head, he leaned toward her. “And you still haven’t answered my question. Why all of a sudden do you have this great need to find out the truth?”

  He was too close, his big body almost touching her. His chest only inches from her breasts. His lips a hairsbreadth from hers. She couldn’t think straight with him hovering over her, ready to devour her.

  “I—I told you that the nightmares and memory flashes I had after the trial have come back. And they’re stronger than they were before.” She locked gazes with him and willed herself not to be the first one to break the contact. “I’ve tried to put the past behind me and build a new life, but...couldn’t return to Stone Creek, knowing that it was partly my fault that you’d been sent to prison and that—”

  “Partly your fault?” Luke lowered his head enough so that their breaths mingled when he spoke. “You were the only eyewitness. The only person who could testify that I picked up that pitchfork.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.” She had wanted to say that to him for fifteen years. If she thought it would do any good, she’d get down on her knees and beg him to forgive
her. But she could tell by the hard look in his eyes that nothing she said would change the way he felt.

  “Not as sorry as you’re going to be.” He whispered the threat into her ear, then nipped her earlobe.

  She gasped, more from the shock of his unexpected bite than from his warning. “I can’t change the past. But if you’ll help me, maybe I can clear your name and...” She started to say earn your forgiveness, but decided that it was too soon to hope for a miracle.

  “You fulfill your part of our bargain, and I’ll fulfill mine.” He licked a moist line from her earlobe, down her neck and over to the top of her chest, exposed by the V neckline of her silk blouse.

  Deanna shuddered as warm, sensual sensations invaded her feminine core and spread slowly through her body. If only Luke were touching her because he loved her and desired her, not out of lust and a vengeful need to humiliate her.

  “As long as you make yourself available whenever I want you, then I’ll work with you and give you all the help I can.”

  He kissed her, his mouth hard and hot and brutal. She tried not to respond, not to accept his ravaging, but her body betrayed her, giving in to Luke’s plundering insistence. It had been such a long time since she’d felt the stirring of desire, since she’d truly felt like a woman. Not in fifteen years. Not since the last time Luke had kissed her.

  With a will of their own, her arms lifted to his shoulders, then draped themselves around his neck. Prompted by her actions, he plunged his tongue inside her mouth, then lowered his hands from the door and eased them down her shoulders and over her arms. When she pressed herself against him, he growled, deep in his throat, and cupped her hips in his hands, bringing her mound up against his throbbing sex. She clung to him as her mind warned her that she was playing a deadly game. But her body wasn’t listening. She had denied herself any physical relationships, putting all her energies into recuperating from her mental breakdown. She had dated several different men over the past ten years, but she had been too uncertain of herself to risk having a meaningful relationship with anyone.

  And here she was jumping headlong into a fiery coupling that was based only on lust and revenge and desperate need. Could she really go through with this—give herself to Luke, knowing the reason he wanted her?

  Sliding her hands over his shoulders and down his chest, she tried to push him away and gain some semblance of reason. Growling, Luke held her hips tightly, welding their lower bodies together.

  “You—you said that before we...” Deanna gasped for air as Luke rubbed himself against her. “You said that first you wanted me to answer some questions. What—what questions?”

  “The questions can wait until later.” Holding her in place with one hand, he reached between them and ripped her blouse apart. Tiny pearl buttons popped off and fell to the floor, bouncing softly on the worn tan carpet.

  Deanna gasped. “Luke, please...”

  “Please what?” he asked. “Please stop or please don’t stop?”

  “It shouldn’t be like this,” she told him. “Don’t you remember how it used to be? What it was like for us? Please, don’t destroy those beautiful memories by—”

  He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Beautiful memories! I don’t have any beautiful memories. Just memories of a girl who used me, lied to me and betrayed me.”

  She reached out for him, her hand trembling as it hovered near his face. “No, don’t say that. I didn’t use you and I never lied to you. Never!”

  “But you can’t deny that you betrayed me, can you?”

  “No,” she replied, her voice a throaty whisper. “I can’t.”

  Tightening his hold on her shoulders, his fingers biting into her flesh through the silky material of her blouse, Luke glared at her. “Either you’re willing to do this or you aren’t. It’s your decision. You’re free to walk out that door anytime you want to.”

  “If I leave, we won’t have a bargain will we? You won’t help me?”

  “That’s right. I won’t. This is your decision to make. But make it right now.”

  The sane, sensible part of her told her to leave, but her heart and her body told her to stay. Whatever happened, however degrading and painful it was having Luke take her this way, she wasn’t willing to risk losing the last chance for redemption. Her own and Luke’s.

  “I’m staying.”

  He released her immediately, then backed away from her. “Take off your blouse and slacks and let me look at you.”

  He wasn’t going to make this easy for her. No, he would want his pound of flesh. She always had known Luke had an angry, wild side to him, but with her that wild anger had always been tempered with gentleness and love. Tonight there was only the anger and the wildness. And the lust he could not disguise.

  Luke turned on the radio, switching stations until he found a country and rock ‘n’ roll station. The tune was something from the sixties, with an upbeat rhythm and the thundering beat of drums. He dragged the chair out of the corner, placed it at the foot of the bed and sat down, waiting for Deanna’s performance.

  When he’d turned his back to her briefly, she had caught a glimpse of the faded scars that striped his back—scars left by her father’s whip. She desperately wanted to rush over and touch those scars, to caress that marred flesh, to place her lips on the healed wounds. But Luke would not want her pity. Now even less than he had wanted it fifteen years ago.

  Deanna took a deep, steadying breath and slipped her ripped blouse from her shoulders, then slowly eased it down her arms and off. Quivering, she dropped the red silk to the floor. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—look at Luke.

  While the music added background to Deanna’s pathetic striptease, Luke crossed his arms over his chest and reared back in the chair. She unbuttoned and unzipped her slacks. Hooking her thumbs inside the waistband, she eased the white cotton pants over her hips and let them fall to her ankles. After kicking the slacks and white sandals aside, she lifted her head and tossed her hair over her shoulders and onto her back.

  Luke let out a long, low whistle and then applauded. Deanna shivered. Humiliation rose inside her, mingling with sorrow and anger. The emotions lodged in her throat as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. Dammit, she would not cry. She had cried for years. There weren’t many tears left in her. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to waste them feeling sorry for herself.

  “Come here,” he said, motioning to her with his index finger.

  Deanna moved toward him, hesitantly, but with her chin lifted and her eyes focused directly on his face. When she was within a foot of where he sat, she paused.

  “Is this where you want me?” she asked.

  He rose from the chair. She looked up at him. He placed his hands on her shoulders and pressed down, urging her to her knees. She knelt before him, the top of her head reaching his waist and her mouth only inches from his zipper.

  “Take off my jeans for me,” he told her.

  Her hand shook so badly that she couldn’t take hold of the zipper tab. Luke grabbed her hand, steadying it, then pinched her fingers over the zipper tab and helped her ease it all the way down. His sex bulged inside his cotton briefs.

  Deanna pulled his jeans off his hips and down his legs. He lifted one foot and then the other, assisting her. She tossed the jeans to one side, then started to rise from the floor. Luke cupped the top of her head, shoving her back down to her knees.

  “Now the briefs.”

  “Luke, I—” She gazed up into his face and knew then that there would be no pardon for her sins. Not tonight. He would show her no mercy.

  While she tried to control the trembling in her hands, she also tried to quiet the roar of her raging hormones that were overriding any common sense she had left. She removed his briefs, then closed her eyes to blot out the sight of his magnificent naked body. He always had been beautiful, but now that he was a mature man, he was more than beautiful. He was gloriously, breathtakingly male. Big, hard, powerful. And fully aroused.
r />   Luke took her face in his hands. “Open your eyes, Deanna.”

  She obeyed, but instead of feasting her eyes on his sex, she looked away at the wall. Luke took her face in his hands, forcing her to confront his masculinity.

  “You know what I want.” He pressed her forward until her mouth touched him intimately.

  “Luke, I—I can’t. I’ve never...We never—”

  “No, babe, we never did get around to this, did we? You were too young and skittish back then. But you’re not a girl anymore, you’re an experienced woman. I’m sure you’ve used your mouth to give more than one man pleasure.”

  “I haven’t. Not ever.”

  She could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t believe her. If he didn’t believe her about this, there was no way he’d ever believe that there hadn’t been another man in her life—only him. He had been her one and only lover.

  “Well, if that’s so, then it’s time you learned.”

  Luke showed her no pity as he taught her how to pleasure him. She found herself aroused by what she was doing to him, by the deep, rugged moans he made as her lips and tongue tantalized every inch of him. Her breasts throbbed and peaked. Her feminine core moistened as it clenched and unclenched in preparation.

  Just as he was on the verge of climaxing, Luke eased her head away and dragged her to her feet. Deanna was breathless, her heart thumping wildly. She stared at him for one split second and knew he had lost control and was beyond reason.

  “Take off your bra and panties! Now!”

  She hurried to obey his command, her fingers fumbling at the task. When he grew impatient with her lack of speed, he unsnapped her bra and tossed it across the room, then jerked her panties down and off, throwing them to the floor.

  Luke flung Deanna down across the bed on her stomach, with her feet dangling off the side. Before she could turn over, he came up behind her and lifted her onto her knees. She heard a ripping sound and knew he was removing a condom from its wrapper. She closed her eyes and waited. He lowered himself onto her, taking her from behind, thrusting into her to the hilt. She cried out from the unexpected pleasure and the sharp stab of pain. He rode her hard, pumping into her as he sought and found his release.