“Allow me, miss,” he said, reaching the door before Domini.
Shooting one last look over her shoulder, Domini ran. She didn’t want to see Matt. Didn’t want to talk to any of the Colfaxes. Darting around to the side of the house, she kept running until she was out back. The shouts and laughter from the far corrals sent her fleeing in the opposite direction. Matt shouted her name, but Domini ran faster, heading for a small cluster of trees. It was cool and shadowed beneath the thick-leaved branches, but Domini couldn’t find a place to hide. There were no low-growing shrubs to conceal her. The sound of Matt’s voice was coming closer just as Domini stepped out of the trees. Warm sunlight did little to take away the cold encompassing her. She made a frantic search of the land before her, seeing nothing that offered respite.
Not until she looked up and spied a small cabin. She ran for the woods at the base of the mountain. There had to be a path leading upward.
Matt stopped short when he saw where she was heading. He wasn’t going to make a fool of himself by running after her. With an angry gaze he watched the last of her disappear into the woods. Raking his hands through his hair, he turned back to the house, but not before he cursed the man who had drawn every free ranch hand to the corrals. Luke didn’t want the ranch or the mines. But Matt had seen how his brother looked at Dominica. He might spurn the Colfax wealth, but Luke wanted her. Only this time Luke wasn’t winning. No matter what he had to do.
Matt wasn’t sure what made him glance again toward the corrals. He was sorry he did. The crowd had parted and he saw his father slapping Luke on the back. Even from where he stood, Matt felt the pride Toma had for Luke. Pride never once shown to him. He had thought he had learned to cope with it, but this time Toma had made the stakes too high. And with the escalating Indian troubles came deaths. Smoothing his hair, Matt returned to the house. His mother had a great deal to answer for.
Spotting Matt heading back to the house, Luke shrugged off Toma’s hand. He had been up before dawn working alone and quietly with the first of the horses he had to break. With the back of his hand he wiped the sweat off his brow and took his hat from one of the hands. He hadn’t missed Domini fleeing as if the devils from hell were after her. Nor had he missed where she was headed.
“Com’on up to the house with me, boy,” Toma said, once more attempting to sling his arm around Luke’s shoulders. “After a workout like this you need to eat. ’Sides, I want to hear where you’ve been an’ what you’ve done.”
“Later, Toma. There’s something I need to do now.” Luke walked away without a backward glance. Toma refused to understand that it was too late for them. Luke already regretted his actions last night. Enough that he had tossed and turned trying to figure out what had possessed him to compete with Matt for Domini. His brother would never back off. And he knew how dirty Matt could fight. He had been forced to live with the results of it until he was old enough to begin fighting back.
His long strides brought him quickly across the open land and into the woods. The path to the cabin twisted up a rock-strewn trail. White yarrow bloomed in clear spaces, and huckleberries ripened along one side. Luke ignored them, his eyes pinned to the top of the path, his thoughts solely on the woman who waited above him.
Domini huddled near the side of the log cabin, clutching her side. Her breathing was harsh from running, but she felt safe for the first time since Luke had brought her here. Sunlight filtered through the trees that stood sentinel around the small cabin, blocking it from view. The logs and chinking showed age. The front had an overhang where split logs were piled high to season before use.
As her mind cleared, she wondered who lived here. Amanda had said that the original cabin had been built down below where the house now stood. Unless she had lied … Domini touched the golden log wall. Could this have belonged to her father?
“Domini?”
She spun around, bracing one hand against the wall to keep her balance as Luke came out of the shadows. “I didn’t hear you. I—”
“Why were you runnin’?”
He stood waiting for an answer, and Domini found herself seeing him as she had the first time, when she had turned at the stage depot and found him behind her. He hadn’t made a sound then, as now, and the impact on her senses was heightened to a frightening degree. His gray shirt bore the damp spots of sweat from his labor with the horses. Dark stubble covered his cheeks and jaw, that rigid jaw silently communicating anger to her. With his hat brim canted down she couldn’t see the expression in his eyes. Was he angry with her?
“What did Matt do to you?”
The words were evenly spaced, spoken through gritted teeth. Domini shook her head in denial. “Nothing. Matt did nothing more than call after me.” Her eyes targeted his fists that slowly uncurled. “Why do you hate each other?”
“Who? Me and Toma? Amanda? Matt? You’ve got a hell of a choice. And why not ask them?”
“I tried, Luke. I asked Amanda about you and why—”
“She wouldn’t tell you. None of them will.” She decided to leave it alone. The last thing she needed to deal with was Luke and his smoldering anger. “Who lives here?”
“I do. Have for the last ten years. When I’ve come back, that is. Mulekey keeps an eye on things for me.”
His isolation reached through her own pain. Before Domini thought about it, she went to him. “Will you invite me inside, Luke?”
He stared down at her face, hearing her ask for more than an invitation to his cabin. She had been crying. Her lashes were wet, spiked together above the sheen of her green eyes. He couldn’t stop himself from raising his hand to smooth his thumb over her cheek, his gaze holding fast to hers.
He recalled his thought when he had first seen her, that he would pile up grief for himself. But it had already been too late then, as it was now. The sweet, clean scent of her was inhaled on his every breath, and he could feel the faint tremble of her body just from where his thumb rested on her cheek.
“Luke?”
The whisper of his name ran through him. Deep. Dark. Fast. Liquid as hot honey, her voice sizzled his nerve ends. That’s was all it took, just the whisper of his name from her lips and he was aching, full and hard, and filled with wanting to bury his flesh in hers. To lose himself in all that was Domini. And she knew. His gaze drifted lower as he heard her ragged inhaled breath as if she scented the danger he presented to her. She didn’t know the half of it.
“If I take you inside, Domini, I won’t let you go till I’ve had you.”
In an abrupt move he dropped his hand and turned away.
“That’s one hell of an invitation, Luke.”
“It’s the only one I’m giving you.”
There was a dangerous stillness about him. Domini thought for a few seconds about what he offered. Regret laced her voice when she answered him.
“I can’t accept your invitation, Luke.”
“Won’t.”
“All right, I won’t. I want to. I never understood what desire meant until I met you. But there’s so much anger inside you. Anger that I sense is directed at me. That I don’t understand.”
She breathed a sigh of relief when he leaned against the wall. She had been afraid that her refusal would make him leave her alone.
“The anger,” he began in a tired voice, “isn’t all for you. Part’s for my bringing you here. I swear I didn’t know, never thought that Toma would demand you marry one of us. Truth is, I guess I stopped thinking about it along about the time I kissed you.”
His voice had grown husky with the last, and Domini stared at the hard planes of his profile. Just the mention of the kisses they had shared unfurled a coil of warmth inside her. It was too easy to recall the wildness he had set free, of his temptingly handsome features that had whispered of hunger and darker passions. And that simmering promise of danger.
With a mental jerk, she stopped herself from being drawn into the beckoning well of sensuality that
he spun so effortlessly around her.
“Is that why you’re so angry with me, Luke? Is it because Toma forced—”
“Toma stopped forcing me to do anything the day I turned fourteen.” He looked at her then, seeing the play of sunlight and shadows over her face. Bruised shadows of a sleepless night curved beneath her eyes. Her green eyes were leveled at him, but his gaze drifted lower, to the curve of her breasts, the flare of her hips, and he remembered all too well the perfect fit of her body to his.
Meeting her gaze, he said, “The anger is for what you make me want, Domini. Not just your body, though I ache to bury my flesh in yours. There’s still love in you, an’ mine got all used up a long time ago. Truth is, there was a time I hated you.”
She wrapped her arms around her waist. “Hated me? But why, Luke? You didn’t even know me.”
“Sure I did. I heard stories about you from your father. I envied you having not one but two parents who loved you. How’s that for honesty?”
His voice was calm and soft. Maybe too much so. One of the hardest things Domini ever did was take the first step toward him. She didn’t know if he would reject her, leave, or lash out, but she hurt for him. Hurt until tears fell unheeded down her face as she stood before him.
“I don’t want your goddamn pity.”
“P-pity, Luke? N-no. Never that. You’re too strong to be pitied. But are you strong enough to accept love?”
His features darkened with frightening speed. From one second to the next, his lazy, leaning stance shifted to that of an alert predator.
“Is that what you’re offering me, Domini? Does love wrap up the gut-deep ache in a prettier package for you?”
“If there’s no love, Luke, then it’s a mating like animals.”
“Honey, man is an animal. The worst kind. The most vicious—”
“The only one capable of love, Luke.”
“Think you’ve got me and everythin’ else all figured out, don’t you? In case you missed hearing me, I was talking about the past, honey.”
“Don’t call me that. Not when you make it an insult. And if it was all in the past, Luke, you would let go of the hate.”
He reached out for her, his fingers closing one by one in a deliberate manner over her upper arms, and just as slowly, holding her gaze fixed with his, he dragged her up against him between his spread legs. The small rippling tremors of her body acted as a caress to his. Luke was struck again by the strength of her features. She wasn’t a soft, fragile, pretty woman, but now he knew his first assessment of her had been right—a man would never tire of looking at her. He never would.
She stared up at him with a vulnerable, uncertain expression and his grip eased slightly. Without thought he began making light caressing motions with his thumbs on her upper arms.
“You’re not afraid of me.”
Domini didn’t have to think. She shook her head.
“You should be.”
“You want me to be afraid, Luke. But there’s too much good—”
“Haven’t you learned anything?” he demanded, his fingers biting into her arms with the rough little shake he gave her. “I’m the bad seed. Bad blood. Bad down to the bone.”
“No. You don’t believe that. You can’t. I don’t believe it.”
Her eyes implored him to believe her. But Domini didn’t know she was trying to fight a dark, angry tide that had built over years of having his badness, and his admission that there was nothing good about him beaten into him. She had been taught that it was wrong to hate. But a tide of overwhelming hate rose inside her for those who had punished him. She wanted to wreak vengeance on Amanda for doing it, Toma for allowing it, and Matt because he was every bit as cruel as his parents.
She struggled to raise her hand between the press of their bodies. He felt her fingers trace the jagged scar on his cheek.
“How did this happen to you?” she asked softly.
He didn’t want to answer. Yet the words slipped out. “I was too curious for my own good, too little to understand why Amanda hated me. I snuck into her rooms and she caught me touching one of her china dolls. She scared me and I dropped it. She used her riding crop on me.” He closed his eyes against the memory of the blow, wanting to refuse Domini’s gentle touch, which seemed to offer healing, and he wanted to refuse her compassion.
He had one weapon against Domini. He used it. Ruthlessly.
“You shouldn’t have come up here, Domini. Don’t you know what I could do to you? What I want to do to you? Toma declared open hunting season on you. I’ll be damned if Matt gets you first.”
The tremors grew deeper until she was visibly shaking. Now she was afraid. And he didn’t care. He couldn’t let himself care about her. But you do, a small voice whispered. You care too much. Else you wouldn’t have agreed to Toma’s scheme.
He shut out the voice of conscience, and let the anger that had smoldered flare to life.
“If you’re not afraid of me now, you will be before I’m ready to let you go.”
His eyes were so black that she wanted to close hers against their heat and fury. “W-will—” she shuddered and forced herself to finish, “hurting me help you?”
Her head was angled back as if in offering. He gazed at her bared throat, then her hips, before he looked into her wide green eyes.
“Are you offering yourself like a lamb for sacrifice?”
“If t-that’s what you need, Luke.”
“What I need is a woman. Willing or not.” With a savage twist of his body he changed places with her, pressing her against the solid wall of his cabin, pressing his body against hers. His mouth claimed the bare length of her throat, his voice rough and hoarse with need.
“I want to be inside you. I want to take you every way a man can have a woman, Domini. And I want that so badly I hurt. But sex won’t be enough. I want all of you until there’s nothing for you without me.”
And he knew as he claimed her trembling mouth that he had lied. Sex wasn’t all he wanted from her. He wanted to believe as she did that Amanda was wrong, that there was still some vestige of good in him. He wanted to believe that as badly as he wanted Domini. He wanted justice for the years she’d been alone and the years he had been denied his rightful place. But he kept these wants silent. He couldn’t let go of the painful lessons learned in the past: of giving voice to a desire only to be refused.
“Fight me, damn you,” he whispered against her mouth, taking her lips with all the pent-up hunger in him. Christ! She was soft. Soft enough to ease a man’s pain. He needed to drown in her softness, in the sweet heat of her giving.
It was the generous giving of herself that defeated his churning anger. He couldn’t hurt her. Didn’t want to. But her lips met his with an explosive demand that he could not have stopped even if he had found the will to. Their harsh breaths mingled like the rush of the wind in a dizzying force around them. His hips ground against hers and found only the pliant yield of her body.
Domini couldn’t have fought him if she had found the will to do so. He had unleashed a storm that battered her emotions until he had his wish. She couldn’t think of anything but Luke and the gut-deep need he had set free. He had tempted her from the first to taste the forbidden passion that waited. Passion he offered. Could teach. And satisfy.
But even more enticing was the thought that she could lead Luke out from the shadows that he had lived with for so long. Once she had questioned why Luke believed that change brought about destruction. She had wondered if someone had tried to destroy him to make him change. She had answers. And only wished to bring him ease and comfort. If he would let her…
There was goodness in him, just as there was love. And need. It was so strong that she tasted it in his kiss.
He was drowning in her. Luke could barely contain the overpowering need he had to see if that golden skin that graced her face and neck were the same all over. Hunger filled him with a violent rush. He wanted to st
rip her clothes from her, to see if her nipples were the same lush, dusky color as the generous mouth that answered the thrust of his tongue with a small sensual duel. She made him want everything, all the long ago childhood dreams of having someone to care what happened to him, someone to love him, someone for him to love.
All the wild, hidden sensuality that he wanted to claim was here, held within his arms. He was as hard as a whetstone as he brought her hips against his. He felt how hard and tight her nipples were through the thin cloth. He knew how perfectly she would fit him. Mouth to mouth, her breasts soft, flattening to the muscles of his chest, soft but for the small, hard nipples that burned him. He rocked his hips against her, desiring to nestle his aching flesh within soft black silk that was hotter than the sun beating down on his back, and sweeter than rain.
Domini whimpered. His mouth bruised hers. He was all darkness, filled with an explosive rage that she was not sure she could combat. He wanted her. But she still sensed that he hated her for the desire that flared so wildly between them. The quick, hungry touch of his lips brought her hands up to hold his cheeks, but the thick black silk of his hair beckoned and her fingers slid through its length. She moaned, kissing him back with all the hunger he brought to life, pressing closer, then closer still, wanting to be absorbed into his very flesh. She wanted to be lost in the heat, and the pleasure and the passion. Every bit of her skin felt hot, prickly. Her mouth was damp, bruised, her breasts felt swollen, her entire being on fire with need. And all the warnings disappeared as Luke lifted her into his arms without breaking their kiss. Only the cooler, shadowed interior told Domini that he had taken her inside his cabin.
Chapter 17
The moment Luke kicked the door close, Domini wrenched her lips from his. He was already lowering her to his bed when she cupped his cheeks to stop him from kissing her again.
“Are you sure this is what you need, Luke? Will having me get rid of the demons that haunt you and keep the hate alive?”
Whisper My Name Page 17