Virgin Seduction

by Kathleen Creighton

  "Hard to say." Cade shifted restlessly and tossed away his cheroot. "This is thunderstorm weather. You never know where they'll pop up."

  "Will we ride again today?"

  Cade threw her a look of surprise. After last night, how could she even suggest such a thing? Either she wasn't thinking clearly, or he'd done a better job of taking care of her than he'd thought. He smiled crookedly. Memories made his voice husky. "I don't think so. My backside's still a little bit sore. Besides-" he drank coffee and tossed away the dregs "-I think we'd better tidy up the place and then head on back."

  "So soon?" She looked at him and then quickly away, but not before he saw the look of disappointment that flashed across that all-revealing face of hers.

  "I think we better. If we wait till this afternoon we're liable to run into thunderstorms, and I don't know about you, but I wouldn't care to fly through something like what we had yesterday." His voice was rough with gravel, and he kept his face turned away from her so she wouldn't see the tension in it. Even with sunglasses on he didn't trust his own eyes.

  And hell, why was it he couldn't just tell her how he felt, which was that he'd love nothing better than to stay here indefinitely with her in this old broken-down ranch house, live like a couple of bohemians, stay naked most of the time and make love whenever either of them felt like it? He didn't know why, except that even thinking about saying such a thing to her made him feel too vulnerable. He wasn't ready, yet, to hang his heart out in the open like that. Maybe he never would be.

  "Besides," he said, more abruptly than he meant to, "I have a whole hell of a lot of work to do to get ready for the week. Got a schedule coming up that won't quit." He lifted his coffee mug, saw it was empty and grimaced at it instead. Dammit, he'd done it on purpose, too, that was the hell of it. Scheduled himself to the brink of oblivion just to give himself an excuse not to go home to his wife. Well, hell. How was he supposed to know things were going to change on him so fast, and that he'd be wanting to spend time with her? "I doubt I'm gonna be home much," he said bitterly, "at least for the rest of the week."

  "Of course…I understand," she murmured. "Then…I will go and get ready. Let me know when you would like to leave." And she turned and walked into the house, tall, elegant and regal. Even with her hair a tumbled reminder of a night of passion and unrestrained sex, she was every inch a princess.

  As Cade watched her walk away from him he tried to think of her that way, naked and moist, panting in his arms. But though he could call the memories to his mind, he couldn't quite seem to make them touch his senses, not in the gut-wrenching, groin-tightening way they had come to him first thing this morning. Already, it seemed, his mind was protecting him, drawing an insulating veil around the night just passed.

  In a little while, if he was lucky, maybe last night would begin to seem like those days and nights in Tamir…like something that had happened to someone else, long ago, in a fairy tale.

  Chapter 13

  On Friday, Cade phoned to say that he would be home early, perhaps even in time to have dinner with his wife.

  When Leila heard this she felt first a great surge of joy. That was followed almost immediately by an equally powerful wave of anger. She had been experiencing this same roller coaster of emotions all week long, while her husband had been hundreds of miles away in a place called Odessa. She was, in fact, a cauldron of emotions, bewildering emotions. Loneliness and longing, frustration and fury were only the few she could name.

  Over and over she thought, How could he do this to me? How can he be so cruel? To have opened the doors of Paradise to her, to have shown her such happiness, all that her heart had ever desired-and in the next moment to have snatched it away from her, slammed the door shut and trapped her once more in her lonely cage.

  Yes…that was what it felt like. She was locked up in a cage. No! A coop, she thought, remembering what Cade had told her that night on the terrace. For the truth was she felt more "cooped up" here in Texas, with all its wide open spaces, than she ever had in the royal palace in Tamir.

  Tamir. When she thought of the palace, with its clean white lines, with its gardens and courtyards and clifftop terraces overlooking the sea, and of her sisters, her mother, Salma and Nargis…and Papa, with his great comforting girth and snowy white beard, and eyes that always held a sparkle of affection for her…she was almost overcome with homesickness. And that was followed inevitably by anger.

  I will not take this treatment much longer, she told herself, fortifying her faltering reserves of self-confidence with something she had always had in great abundance. Pride. After all, she reminded herself, I am a princess!

  But then she remembered the feeling of power that had come to her there on the ranch, in the cactus patch and in Cade's arms. And an even more exhilarating, ennobling thought came to her: I am a woman. I deserve better. I deserve to be loved.

  And she would tell Cade that, she had decided. This evening, after they had shared the dinner Betsy had prepared.

  But for some reason, to Leila's dismay, Betsy decided on this particular Friday that she must leave work early. She had things to do, she and Rueben, and they must make a trip into town. Leila was not to worry, dinner was all prepared, all she would need to do was heat it up in the microwave. Betsy showed Leila the platter of beef kabobs-cubes of marinated beef skewered on sticks with chunks of onion and peppers and tomatoes, already grilled and arranged on a bed of fluffy rice that had been seasoned with broth and sweet red peppers. It was one of Cade's favorite dishes, Betsy said, guaranteed to put him in a good mood for the evening. And she had given Leila a wink. Then she had caught her up in a hug and had whispered, "Don't give up on him, honey. You just need to be patient."

  Patient? Well, it was true that patience had never been one of Leila's greatest virtues. And as the time approached for Cade to arrive, she became more and more impatient and nervous. She paced in the kitchen, looking again and again at the digital clock on the stove. Was it time yet? Should she take out the food now? She had never prepared and served a meal for her husband before. Many times she went over the checklist in her mind-she had already arranged the dishes and silverware on the table in the dining room, just the way Betsy had taught her, and had even cut some roses from the bushes in the yard and arranged them in a crystal vase. There was iced tea chilling in a glass pitcher in the refrigerator, and Cade's favorite bourbon on a silver tray on the sideboard.

  Everything was ready. But where was Cade?

  He had told Betsy he would be home early, in time for dinner-but what did that mean? Six o'clock? Seven? And now it seemed to Leila that it was growing dark very rapidly. What if something had happened to him? An automobile accident, perhaps, driving home on those freeways with so many cars.

  She paced and paced, growing more and more nervous. Finally, she could stand it no longer. She would at least get out the food. Put it in the microwave oven, so it would be ready at a moment's notice, the minute he came home…

  Thunder rumbled in the deepening dusk outside as she opened the refrigerator and oh, so carefully slid the heavy, plastic-wrapped platter toward her. She picked it up in both hands and turned to bump the door closed with her hip.

  From out of nowhere, it seemed, came a great boom of thunder. With all her concentration on the platter in her hands and her nerves honed to knife-points, Leila reacted to the sound as if she had been shot. She gave a startled cry and the platter dropped from her hands.

  Her heart seemed to stop. Her world went silent. Encased in a bubble of shock, she stared down at the swath of rice and juices, chunks of meat and brightly colored vegetables scattered across the tile floor amidst sparkling icicle shards of glass.

  No! her mind shrieked, refusing to believe what was before her own eyes. Refusing to believe such a disaster could have happened, and that she was responsible. No! This could not be her fault. She had never done such a thing before in her life.

  This would not have happened if she had not been so ne
rvous, so worried and upset. About Cade. Cade! Yes! This was all his fault.

  With a howl of unprincesslike fury, Leila hurled herself across the kitchen, snatched open the door and plunged outside into the rain that had just that moment begun to fall.

  * * *

  Cade couldn't remember when he'd ever been so glad to be home. He couldn't believe, either, how much he was looking forward to seeing his wife. The nice buzz of anticipation he'd been nursing all day had intensified during the time he'd spent sitting in rain-and accident-snarled traffic on Houston's outbound freeways until now it was a throbbing weight in his belly and a smoldering fire in his groin.

  He hadn't been able to get her out of his mind all week. Images, bits and pieces of the day and night they'd spent at the ranch, kept invading his conscious and unconscious thoughts, making a joke of his concentration during the day and total chaos of his nights.

  The truth was, he'd done quite a lot of thinking about Leila and his marriage during those lonely nights in a barren motel room out there in the vast Texas midlands. And the conclusion he'd come to was that, since it looked like he was stuck in this marriage for the duration, he'd better find a way to make it work. He'd come back to Houston full of new vows and determination-to spend more time with his wife, for one thing. He thought-he hoped-if they did things together, if he got to know her better, maybe he'd find they had something in common after all. Maybe he'd even learn how to talk to her.

  One thing for certain: he was tired of fighting his desire for her. Literally. Worn out. It was sapping his strength, physically, mentally and emotionally, and if he didn't do something about it, sooner or later it was going to start affecting his ability to run a business. Not to mention what it was doing to his disposition.

  By the time Cade got home rain was coming down in buckets, so he parked his car right beside the back gate, the better to make a run for it. Conveniently for him, the gate was wide open. Surprising, too, since it was a poolyard gate and therefore supposed to be self-closing. The way it looked, the gate must have been thrown back with some pretty good force, so that the latch had caught on the fence, holding it open. Which was unusual, but not unheard of, and probably explainable because of the rain-somebody running for cover in a big hurry. He didn't begin to feel alarmed until he saw that the kitchen door was wide open, too.

  Calling Leila's name, he went into the kitchen. His heart was already beginning to pound. He was so intent on looking for her that he almost stepped in the mess on the floor before he saw it. "What the hell-?" he muttered. Quickly skirting the disaster, he stuck his head into the hallway, calling more urgently now. And he was halfway up the stairs when the significance of the open door and thrown-back gate finally penetrated the alarm-clamor in his brain. Then he knew exactly where he'd find her.

  Leila was in the center aisle of the stable. She was brushing the foal, Sari, while Suki, her mother, watched with anxiously pricked ears from a nearby stall. Leila was singing in Arabic as she usually did when she worked with horses, not in her usual soothing croon but in short, breathless whimpers that were not soothing to anyone. Least of all Leila.

  When she heard the scrape of footsteps on concrete, she did not want to look. She wanted to go on calmly brushing Sari as though she had not a care in the world, but how could she, when every beat of her heart felt like a blow that rocked her whole body, when her hands could not hold the brush steady, but instead jerked and shook as if she had a violent chill.

  Then, of course, she must turn to look. And she did not even think how melodramatic it looked-Cade, drenched and wild-eyed with his hair all on end, framed in the stable entrance while lightning flickered and flashed behind him like a scene from a horror movie. She was utterly lost in the storm of her own emotions. And what a bewildering mix of emotions! Relief, and longing…overwhelming love and unreasoning fury.

  "Leila?" He came rapidly toward her, and his voice was hoarse with concern. "Hey, are you okay? What are you doing out here?"

  "Your dinner is ruined." It seemed to Leila that her voice came from somewhere outside her own head. Half-forgotten in her nerveless hand, the brush traced an erratic zigzag across the foal's mottled charcoal back. "There was thunder…I dropped it on the floor."

  "Yeah, I saw." He touched her arm gently, a tentative turning pressure. "Hey, look-it's okay. It doesn't mat-"

  She whirled on him like a dervish. " Where…were…you?" Her fists thumped against his chest, her eyes spurted fire and tears together. "You said…you would be home early. And I waited and waited…and then it got dark…" The pressure of pent-up emotions had finally blown, and she could not have stopped herself if she'd tried. "And I thought…I did not know where you were!" She wasn't aware, nor did she care what she looked or sounded like, or whether she was acting like the classic shrewish wife. "And I thought…I thought… that you were…"

  "I'm sorry-the traffic was…the rain…there were accidents." Cade mumbled, dazed. His brain was reeling. All he could think was that this felt a lot to him like the moment out there in the live oak grove when his horse had abruptly gone one way and he another. His emotions and desires were all of a sudden galloping off in unexpected directions, beyond his ability to control.

  After a brief struggle he gave up trying. He got his arms around Leila's quaking body and caught her hard against him. Wrapped his hand in the humid tangle of her hair to hold her still, and kissed her.

  What came next was a conflagration. It exploded upon them so unexpectedly and burned so voraciously it gave him no time to think at all.

  When he first kissed her, Leila gasped in surprised outrage, then struggled against him-for all of two seconds-and the next thing he knew they were panting and whimpering and tearing off each other's clothes. He dimly remembered backing her into an empty stall…the deep cushioning straw coming up to meet him and his body already half-entwined with hers.

  With almost a week's worth of pent-up desire clawing at his insides and fogging his brain, it didn't even occur to Cade that he might have pushed into her too abruptly, or too soon. Nor to Leila, either, not then. She gave a sharp cry, but it was of passion, not pain, and her body arched against him, not away. Her body was hot…so hot, feverish in his arms, and she wrapped herself around him like that all-over glove he remembered. And it felt good…so good to be inside her…as if, after a long and perilous journey, he'd finally found his way home.

  A fierce, exultant joy invaded him as she met his thrusts with tiny passion-cries…when she gasped out his name as he released the flood of his passion into her. When she writhed and clung to him as he kept thrusting, until only moments later he felt her come apart…her body go light, limp and pulsing in his arms.

  Exhilarated, happier than he could ever remember being in his life, quaking with it, wanting to share his shaky, wondering laughter with Leila's, Cade slipped sideways enough so he could touch her face. His joy turned to despair. Laughter hardened inside him and became instead a throbbing lump in his belly.

  She was crying. Not the half sobbing, half laughing overflow of emotions that had bewildered and dismayed her so when he'd made love to her the first time-that he'd understood. This was different. This was misery. Grief-stricken, heartbroken despair.

  "Sweetheart, what is it?" His voice was rasping and raw. "Did I hurt you? I'm sorry-"

  She shook her head wildly, and because there was no one else from whom to seek comfort, turned her face to his chest.

  But what could he say to comfort her, when he didn't begin to understand the reason for her tears? So he said nothing at all, while his mind battered helplessly against the bars of his ignorance. Until, with a glimmering of hope, he thought of something that might, just possibly, make her feel better.

  "Hey," he murmured to her still-quaking silence, gazing down through a fog of mystified tenderness at the damp tendrils of hair draped across her ear. "I didn't have a chance to tell you. Guess who called today?"

  After only the briefest of pauses he gave her the
answer. "Elena. And Hassan. They're back from their honeymoon. Just got back a couple days ago."

  She pulled away from him just enough so she could look at him. "Really?" She sniffed. One long hand came, furtive and embarrassed, to wipe at her tears. "They are here? In Texas?"

  Cade nodded. "Yep. They're going to be at Elena's ranch this weekend. How'd you like to pay 'em a visit?" His throat ached as he smiled.

  She gave a little gasp and sat up, both her tears and her nakedness forgotten. "A visit? Elena has a ranch? I did not know. Is it very far? Will we fly?"

  "A little one…and not far at all, just outside of Evangeline. An hour's drive from here. How's tomorrow sound?"

  "Tomorrow? Oh, yes-oh, Cade…" She kissed him, and her face, still wet with tears and alight with happiness, was like the sun coming out after a rainstorm.

  Cade's heart was in dark despair. Just as when she'd kissed him after he'd given her the foal for her bride gift, his thoughts now were bleak. It's gratitude. She's only happy because I've given her something she wants. And it's not me.

  Elena came out to greet them, waving from the wide front porch of a house that, although it was made of white painted wood rather than brownish stone, reminded Leila of Cade's ranch house where she had been so briefly and blissfully happy. Reminded her of it so much, she had to swallow hard and blink away tears.

  Cade had barely parked the SUV before Leila was out of the car and running up the graveled path. She met Elena on the steps. "Oh, I am so glad to see you," she breathed impulsively as she returned the other woman's hug. And now she did lose control of a few tears. Elena seemed very like a sister to her now, which made her miss her own sisters all the more.

  She drew back, though, when she saw Hassan's tall form, standing just behind Elena. She did not know how to greet this relaxed and smiling man who seemed so different from her so-arrogant older brother, who had always lorded it over her and tried to intimidate her with his piercing black eyes. "Hello, Hassan," she said formally, and was even more bemused when he stepped forward and caught her up in a hug as warm as his wife's had been, and laughed and called her "Little sister." In Arabic. Hassan almost never spoke in Arabic!