“Carly!” He caught her arm, and she was forced to stop. She was shaking badly, she realized. She didn’t want to lose her dignity now. She stared at the hand that held her, at the bronze fingers that were curled over the soft flannel of her gown. He wasn’t intimidated. He did not release her.
“Count Vadim,” she said. “I would greatly appreciate it if you would take your—paw—off me.”
“Paw? I see. I am part beast, and I attack people and use torture against them.”
“Do you?” she inquired bluntly.
He didn’t answer for a moment. He glared at her with a look of contempt. “No.”
She tried to pull away. He held fast to her. “Count Vadim—”
“Stop calling me that.”
“It’s your name, isn’t it?”
“You’re not being reasonable.”
“And you are?”
“I’m trying to talk to you.”
“Well, I’ve tried and tried to talk to you. And now I don’t want to talk anymore. I want to leave.”
His mouth tightened. “You want to leave?” he asked harshly.
“Yes.”
“Fine. That’s just fine. We’ll leave together.”
“What—” Carly began. But she choked off her angry, indignant question as he pulled her roughly against him, sweeping his arm beneath her to lift her off her feet. Startled, she stared down into his eyes. They glittered with the sharp edge of his temper and determination. “Vadim, you can’t do this—”
“But I can, Ms. Kiernan. I bloody well can, and I will.”
He started walking so abruptly that she fell against him and instinctively hooked her arms around his neck. “What are you doing? Where are you taking me? You can’t do this!”
But he was proving that he could. His strides brought them very quickly from the bedroom to the hallway and down the stairs. There was a maid on the terrace. Jon ignored her.
“I’m going to scream bloody murder!” Carly warned him.
“Enjoy yourself.”
She gasped for breath, but didn’t scream, though she didn’t know why. He kept on striding across the courtyard. Satan was there, all saddled.
“What are you doing?” Carly demanded in exasperation. “I’m not even dressed!”
He almost smiled then. His eyes flickered over her as his arms tightened.
“You’re perfect for what I’ve got in mind.”
“What!”
He laughed. The next thing she knew, he’d hiked her over Satan’s back, and leaped up behind her. Satan snorted and pranced. Carly swallowed a gasp of fear as the stallion reared and she fell back against Jon once more. His arms came around her to take hold of the reins. Satan set out across the cobblestones at a wild gallop.
“Where are we going?” Carly cried.
“To the devil, so it seems!” he retorted. “To the very devil!”
Her teeth chattering, Carly clung to the pommel. They entered the woods, and she thought she should be frightened. She wasn’t. The tempest still raced through her. Mist rose from the ground, and she knew that wherever he took her, a storm would rage, for that sweet, rough magic was erupting again, all around the two of them and around the magnificent black horse that was bearing them toward their destiny.
CHAPTER 8
It was morning, and it was beautiful. The fall colors remained, flashing by them in a riot of splendor. Carly was alternately frightened and furious and then swept away. She couldn’t believe his audacity, that he would dare to carry her away from his own home so openly, with such determination. Her temper skyrocketed, but there was more to it, too, a side she didn’t want to admit. The scent of morning was glorious, the colors were splendid, and the rich, full fragrance of the earth was wonderful and heady. The morning was alive with freshness, with the sweet dampness of dew, with the excitement of the new day. It all seemed to fill her with a burst of hot, racing adrenaline, and she was achingly aware of his touch, of the wall of his chest behind her and the feeling of his arms around her. The horse moved beneath them with rugged and fluid power, and the air tore about them. She was angry; she was even still frightened.
But nothing like this could ever have happened in Manhattan.
She didn’t know where the mad ride was leading them; he never had any doubts. Time passed and the wind and the colors whipped by them. They came at last to the cottage in the woods, the hunter’s cottage where he had brought her that very first night, where he had first kissed her. Where she had admitted to herself that there was so much hypnotism in his kiss that he could have taken it wherever, whenever he chose, when they were mere strangers.
They weren’t strangers any longer. They were adversaries, perhaps, but lovers, too, and she could not forget that. Not that he intended to let her.
“Whoa, Satan,” he said, and slipped from the animal’s back, letting the reins trail. He reached up for Carly, and she fought to remind herself that Jasmine was still missing, that nothing had changed. That he’d really had no right to bring her here. That she was a fool to love a man so blindly.
“Come here.” He seemed to growl out the words. She stared down at him. His windswept hair lay across his forehead, and his eyes carried the windswept fever of their brisk ride. He was ready for battle.
“Who do you think you are, Count Vadim?” she asked him coolly. But she was feeling reckless and bold, and she knew she was quite ready to enter into the fray herself.
“Come down,” he said.
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
“I won’t.”
“This is ridiculous!” he exclaimed, exploding. His hands encircled her waist, and he dragged her down before him. She slid against his body, her nightgown caught against his belt buckle and her bare limbs entwined themselves with his. He was tense. His leg muscles were rock hard, and the soft flesh of her bare belly was touched by the pressure of his hips and the swelling rise within his jeans. She was so sensitive to his touch that her breath caught and she was stunned into a momentary silence. He allowed her to continue to slide against him as his hands spanned the silky flesh over her hips.
She realized dimly that since he’d first touched her, a part of her had thought of nothing else except being held by him again. She had yearned for the feeling of his lips, his hands. She had ached for his touch, inside and out, and at this moment, as she met the golden electrical storm in his eyes, she felt desire snake into her in a hot fury. She wondered whether this could be Carly Kiernan, reserved, logical, intelligent and wary. He had spoken to her of hunger, and she had learned what it meant. Fear still edged her heart, but the need, the desperate, searing ache, was greater than anything she had ever known.
His arms encircled her neck. She tried to keep her distance, but he laced his fingers at the small of her back and pressed her to him. And still, her voice quavering, she tried to talk. She tried to cling to the anger and deny the desire. “This is hideous behavior.”
“Hideous behavior?” he queried.
“Adolescent! Macho.”
“Oh, do you think so?”
“Definitely! After you lie—”
“I’ve never lied to you!”
“Then you evade the damn truth!”
“You ask too many questions.”
“Because you lie—”
“I don’t lie! I told you that. Not in anything that matters.”
“So you do lie—”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you’re a spoiled little brat. When the going is easy, you’re all for it. Throw in a little trouble—”
“A little trouble!” She realized she was shouting. She was barefoot and shouting and trembling. She wanted to slam her fists against him until she rocked the truth from him. “My sister is missing, and people are dead—”
“And you turned on me. Right away. You acted as if things between us mattered, then you turned on me.”
&nb
sp; “Oh!” she exclaimed in exasperation, slamming her fists against him. He caught her and wrenched her close.
“Stop it! I’ve got you here now, and so help me, you’re going to trust me.”
“Trust you! After this? You have no right. You have no right whatever to act like this! To force people to your will. To drag a woman off as if you were still living in a cave. You have no right.”
“I don’t?”
“No.”
“Oh, the hell I don’t!” he shouted, and kissed her. Hard. Forcefully. He kissed her as if the thought of melding their lips had been with him forever, haunting him to the point of desperation. He molded her body to his and let his hands roam freely over her back and through her hair, and the unleashed fever in him erupted in her. Hot fire leaped and careened through her. She could scarcely breathe, yet neither could she tire of that kiss as it deepened and blossomed. It sowed its seeds deep inside her; its rugged passion filled her mouth, engaged her tongue, then was taken from her. He raked his teeth lightly over her lower lip, and then his mouth claimed hers all over again. Then his lips, just as fervent, just as wild, fell on her throat, and she gasped in abandon, arching her neck in response to his sensual assault.
He lifted her off her feet and, holding her close, carried her into the cottage.
“I had to get you away,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Things were going too far. I couldn’t bear to see you and not touch you.”
“I know.”
The door fell shut behind them. He lowered her to the bunk. Their lips met, then they looked each other in the eye.
“I couldn’t bear the fear in your eyes,” he told her.
“I know you couldn’t—do such things.”
“I had to sit at dinner and look at your hair sweeping over your shoulders. I wanted to stand up and scream and rip you out of your chair and press my lips against your throat and taste your flesh.”
“At dinner?”
“At dinner.”
She smiled as he stretched himself beside her. “We’re not at dinner anymore. What’s stopping you?”
“That ridiculous flannel gown.”
“It isn’t ridiculous!”
“It is when you’re longing to kiss a woman’s shoulders.” His smile was the rueful smile of an enchanting rogue. His eyes held hers while he slipped a hand to the hemline of her gown. His fingers grazed her calves and knees and traveled along her inner thigh, then curved around one hip. He pressed his lips against the curve of her hip, then, impatient, he tugged at the gown, pulling her to him. He buried his head against her shoulder, tossing the offending flannel onto the floor, and the pressure of his mouth sent hot new sensations rushing through her. She dug her fingers into his hair, holding him close. She trembled fiercely and felt the furious thunder of his heart against her breast.
She slipped her hands into his waistband, dragging his sweater upward. In seconds she had cast it on top of her gown on the floor. She stroked the length of his back and lightly bit the hard muscles of his shoulders, moving her breasts against the coarse hair and hardness of his chest.
He let out a harsh oath and pulled away from her to scramble out of his boots and socks and jeans and briefs. She watched him with growing anticipation and restless urgency, then closed her arms around him gratefully when he returned to her. She felt the fever of his body and the male power, and she was desperately eager for him, yet he suddenly held back. He rose above her and grazed her cheek with the back of his knuckles.
His voice was harsh and hard as he said, “You can’t be afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
Now he was aggressive, fierce in his passion. His touch was no longer gentle as he threaded his fingers into her hair. “You have to believe in me.”
“I do.” It wasn’t a lie. When she stared into his glowing amber eyes, she could think of nothing but him. Doubts and suspicion and uncertainty fled.
He lowered his voice, rumbling like the thunder of the storm. It was as tense and passionate as his hold upon her. “You have to want me.”
“I do.”
“You have to be—hungry.”
“I am,” she whispered. She smiled, because she wasn’t afraid in the least. Not of the strength in his hands, not of his temper, not of his arrogance or ferocity, his past or his future. She didn’t mind the tension in his fingers or the trembling in his body. She stroked his cheek and allowed her fingers to travel down his body as he held his weight over her. She stroked the furrow of hair down to his waist and past it, over the hard contour of his belly and beyond. Staring at him, at his fever, at his tension, she felt curiously at peace—and ragingly alive. She felt wonderfully wicked and mischievous...and pure, because she was really very much in love with him, she realized. Blindly in love, maybe. But deeply, desperately so. She loved the sheen on his brow and the rigid constriction of his sinewy body. Still he held himself away from her. She wouldn’t allow it. She feathered her fingers over him to taunt and curled them around him with purpose.
She felt the spasm as he jerked. She marveled sweetly at her power as he shuddered and convulsed. “I am hungry,” she promised him, her eyes innocently wide in her seduction. “Hungry as a silver-gray wolf...”
He emitted some hoarse cry and caught her hand. With a sudden movement he wedged his knees between her thighs, cast back his head and, grinding his teeth, entered her swiftly. There was no more finesse, no more play, just the throbbing burst of passion. He sank like a blade into a velvet liner until her body absorbed the shock, then he gave free vent to the frustration of the days that had elapsed between them. She clung to him and rode the storm, though she had never known anything like it. He enveloped her body with his, cried out again, and while he moved in a frantic, sweeping beat, he tugged her nipple into his mouth, and chords of passion rippled through her. She undulated to meet him and dug her fingers into his shoulders, let them drift over the small of his back, then with soaring abandon gripped the tight muscles of his buttocks. Sensations surged like a growing drumbeat, harder and harder, and then burst, showering her in the liquid warmth of his body and leaving her with a delicious lethargy that barely left her the strength to whisper his name as he fell against her.
They lay there, silent, unmoving, just touching, and feeling the rise and fall of their chests as they fought for a normal flow of breath. Their bodies began to cool at last. The air danced around them, chilling, fall air.
Carly shivered. Jon rose quickly, stripped the blanket from beneath them and wrapped it around her. Naked, he walked over to the fireplace and hunkered down to set another piece of wood on the grate and kindling above it. He lit the kindling with a long match and then waited, watching the flame take. Satisfied, he rose. He strode over to one of the cabinets and slammed through them until he found another blanket. He wrapped it around his shoulders, then found a coffeepot and a foil bag of coffee. Carly watched him in silence. She was growing cold, yet she was delighted, for she still felt a part of him. She tried to tell herself that he was a passionate man; he would love any woman so deeply. She didn’t want to accept such an idea, so she didn’t. She hugged herself and cherished the quivering that remained inside her, the inner warmth that had seeped from his body into hers. She felt very intimate with him. Whatever he was, she longed to remain a part of him.
“This will take a minute,” he said to her.
She nodded. She was still shivering. Smiling, he came back to her and lifted her in his arms, blanket and all. He brought her before the fire, and they sank together before the growing golden warmth. He smoothed back her hair and stroked her face. “Better?”
“Yes.”
“If you want me to apologize, I really can’t,” he told her stiffly.
Carly smiled and kept her eyes lowered. “I don’t want you to apologize.”
“No?”
“No.”
He moved her face into his left arm and lifted her chin with his right hand. He se
arched her eyes and brushed his lips over hers. It was his first real expression of tenderness that day. The other had been exquisite and excruciating and something they had fervently needed. She cherished the explosiveness of need, marveling at her own. But she adored the tenderness, too, and was startled to find she had to blink to hide a sudden surge of tears.
“I love you, you know,” he told her. It was almost a casual remark.
Her heart quickened. “Do you?” she whispered. “Can you—really?”
“I do, and I can.”
She cradled his clean-shaven chin. “I love you, too.”
“I like the way you show it,” he said brusquely.
“Me! I didn’t drag you out in your nightwear—”
“Well, since I sleep naked, we would have gotten a few stares.”
She started to giggle, but then she recalled that he hadn’t been naked that morning. She had seen pajama legs beneath his robe.
“Carly, what is it?”
“If you would just quit behaving so strangely!”
“What?” There was a new note in his voice, and his arm tightened.
She didn’t answer him right away, and he questioned her again. “What are you talking about?”
“This morning.”
“Oh.” He was silent for a moment. “Well, I’m sorry. Oh, not for dragging you out here. It was my only chance. You were trying to leave, and I couldn’t let you do that. I’m sorry for—whatever I did this morning.”
She moved from him, staring into the fire. He reached for her and pulled her back. “Carly! I said I’m sorry.”
She swung around. “Yes, yes! Fine, but you’re frightening me! Don’t you remember?”
“I was—er—half asleep.”
“Half asleep? You came after me like gangbusters.”
“Yes, well, I was desperate then. I knew you were angry.”
He didn’t let her reply. He rose and went back toward the rustic stove where the coffee was perking. He found two mugs and poured out coffee. “I hope you can take it black. I have sugar but no cream here.”
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