by Anne Stuart
"I thought it was champagne that made your brain melt," he said, tipping the flask back for a long pull.
"No," she said in a voice so quiet he almost couldn't hear it. "It's you."
*
She shouldn't have said it. She knew the moment the words were out of her mouth it was a major mistake, one of the worst in her life of major mistakes. She'd known from the grumpy expression on his handsome face, the stern set of his shoulders, that he was going to let her sleep alone on that cot. He had no intention of seducing her, and that noble resolve was putting him in a towering rage.
Unfortunately she wasn't any fonder of that resolve. She'd resigned herself to being overwhelmed, even overpowered, the future of her outdated innocence no longer in her control. She expected to be swept off her feet, and instead the notorious womanizer had chosen to be saintly.
She focused on the outline of Clancy's plane in the purple twilight. It was a beautiful plane, almost as pretty as her Lockheed. She'd only flown Fokkers a few times and they had handled beautifully. They were the right plane for a man like Clancy, large and powerful and swift, graceful and direct. Maybe he hadn't heard what she'd muttered beneath her breath.
She felt his hands on her shoulders, large, strong hands. "You want to repeat that?" His long fingers were stroking her skin, the curve beneath her collarbone, and a tiny shiver swept over her.
"I don't think that would be wise," she forced herself to say. "I'm going to bed." She turned, meaning to move past him to her cot, but he blocked her way.
He was very big in the semidarkness, bigger than she realized. He was no longer touching her, holding her there with the sheer size of him, and she was afraid to push past him, afraid to start it, knowing there'd be no going back once it happened.
And then it was no longer an issue. His dark, dreamy eyes caught hers, a steady promise, and his hand reached out and began to unbutton the tiny buttons that traveled down the front of the baggy long Johns. He unbuttoned past her breasts, down to her waist and beyond. And she was shivering, despite the warmth of the room, despite the heat prickling beneath her skin.
He slid his other hand beneath her hair and pulled her face up to his, her mouth to his. It was a very gentle, almost experimental kiss, a tasting, teasing sort of kiss, his lips soft, damp, brushing against hers, nibbling gently. Her hands came up, almost of their own volition, and rested lightly on his shoulders, and she could feel the tension in his muscles, the heat and muscle, bone and sinew; and the reality of him made her shiver.
He kissed her eyelids, he kissed her cheekbones, he kissed her wounded forehead with the softness of a butterfly. He kissed her ears, her chin, her neck, as he pushed the clinging cotton material off her shoulders, down her arms.
"I don't think we should do this," she said in a whisper as he pulled the long Johns down to her waist. She reached out and began to unfasten the buttons on his shirt.
"No, we shouldn't," he agreed, sliding the cloth off her hips, down her long legs, so that it pooled around her bare ankles. He put his arms around her waist, pulling her close against him, and dipped his head down to hers. "Want to stop?" he whispered against her lips.
"Yes," she said, and kissed him.
This was no gentle wooing. This wasn't like anything she'd seen in the movies. His mouth was hot, demanding, open against hers, and his tongue was touching hers. And she was kissing him back, no longer shy, no longer uncertain.
He swung her up in his arms, and the world spun crazily for a moment. And then she was on her back on the cot, and he was following her down, covering her with his large, strong body.
A second later the cot collapsed beneath them, tumbling them to the floor amid a welter of ripped canvas and splintered braces. She felt herself begin to shake, and she buried her face against Clancy's shoulder, clinging tightly as she tried to control herself.
"Red, are you all right?" he demanded fiercely, trying to pull away from her tight embrace. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," she managed to choke out.
His eyes narrowed as he peered down at her in the darkness. "Are you laughing?"
"I can't help it," she said, giggling. "This never happens to Joan Crawford."
He supported himself on his elbows, his body still pressed intimately against hers, and his hands brushed the hair out of her face. "How many times do I have to tell you, Angel?" he said softly. "This isn't the movies. There isn't going to be some sweet fade out. You're naked, and I'm about to be. This is real."
She stopped laughing abruptly. "Clancy," she said in a very quiet voice, "don't hurt me."
He frowned. "You're a virgin, Red. The first time always hurts, at least a little."
"I'm not talking about my body, Clancy. I don't care what you do with that. I'm talking about me. Don't hurt me. I don't think I could bear it."
She had no idea what he was thinking. There wasn't really much he could say to her unexpected plea. She should never have asked. The moment she met him she knew he was going to hurt her. He was that kind of man. It was a waste of time to ask.
Then he grinned. "Honey, by the time I'm finished, you're going to care a great deal about what I do with your body. Trust me. Just lie back and I'll take care of everything." And he slid his hands down her body to cup her breasts.
She arched her back in surprised reaction. A moment later his mouth followed his hands, catching her breast and suckling it deep into his mouth. She murmured a strangled cry, half of protest, half of pleasure, and then it was all pleasure. Her hands reached out and cupped his head, holding him against her, as his other hand moved down, past her waist, between her legs with sudden daring.
She squirmed, trying to close her legs against him, but he was having none of it. "Either we're going to do this or we're not," he murmured, lifting his head and watching her out of hooded eyes.
She bit her lip. "Clancy," she said, her voice a helpless confession, "I'm frightened."
She should have hated his grin. Instead she fell in love with it. "Not my fearless Angel," he said, kissing her lips. "Not the woman who's won the Bendix Cup for flying across the country." He kissed her collarbone. "Not the woman who flew that Atlantic in record time." He kissed both breasts. "Not the woman who started her own airline and is holding her own against a creep like Charlie Olker." He kissed her lower belly. "Not the woman who's planning to beat the pants off me by flying from Newfoundland to Havana. That woman isn't afraid of anything or anybody, including something as warm and natural as making love." And he kissed her between the legs.
She shoved him away in shock. "Don't do that," she gasped. "That isn't warm and natural."
"Of course it is. You'll get used to it." But he moved up, his hand stroking down over her hip, moving between her legs again with deft sureness.
This time she didn't protest. She was still so astonished by his intimate kiss that she remained passive as he touched her, stroked her. And then suddenly she wasn't passive. Suddenly she was burning up, clutching at his shoulders as her hips arched off the pallet.
"That's right, Angel," he murmured in her ear. "That's what I want to see." He'd managed to shrug out of his shirt, and in the darkness she heard the rustle of clothing as he kicked out of his pants. She didn't have time to be frightened again. Things were burning out of control, her body was covered with a fine film of sweat and she was no longer content with waiting.
"Clancy," she said, her voice a strangled cry.
He loomed over her in the darkness, between her legs, and he seemed huge, frightening and out of reach, his strong legs between hers, heat and hardness pulsing at the very center of her.
"Just close your eyes and think of flying," Clancy muttered beneath his breath, and he surged forward, into her, his hands catching her legs and pulling them around him.
She shrieked, a small, anguished sound of pain and surprise as she felt his tearing invasion. He held very still against her, his hard chest against her softness, his head cradled against her neck.
&n
bsp; She wanted to shove him again. She wanted to scream at him, to hit him, and she reached up her hands to push him.
He caught those hands. "Keep still," he said in a harsh voice.
"I don't like this. Get up, Clancy. Go away."
He laughed, and she could feel his laughter over and inside her body. "Too late now, Red. Calm down, you'll get used to it."
"I don't want to." She could feel the tension vibrating through his body, the body that was capturing her, imprisoning her against the rough wood floor of the hut, the body that was impaling her and owning her. The pain was gone now, but she was too upset to notice.
"Tough." He let out a shaky sigh, lifting his head to look down at her.
"Hurry up and get this over with, Clancy," she said between clenched teeth. "It was a terrible mistake and I just want—" His mouth stopped hers midspate, covering hers, silencing her. She realized vaguely that she was no longer pushing him away. That she was clutching him fiercely. That she was kissing him back with a fiery determination and that the pain and embarrassment were fading into oblivion.
He began to pull away and for a moment she panicked, afraid he really was going to leave her. She clutched at him, but he sank back into her, driving deep. His hands were beneath her hips, pulling her tighter, and she moaned deep in her throat as he did it again, moving away, then sinking back in. That tension was building again, that burning need she couldn't understand, and all she knew was that she wanted more of him, more and more and more. They were both slippery with sweat, she was trembling, he was trembling, and her anger was no longer even a memory as she strove for something she couldn't even understand.
He reached his hand between their bodies and touched her. She clutched him as her body exploded into something beyond her comprehension. She could feel his body as he arched against her, rigid, as lost as she was. Countless moments later he collapsed in her arms, pulling her tightly against him with an instinctive, protective gesture. And she let him, burying her tear-stained face against his chest, wanting to hide from a world that had suddenly gone off kilter.
A little while later he rolled off her, and while she was glad to be able to breath again, she missed the dark possessiveness. He ended up on his own, softer pallet, and for one horrible moment Angela wondered whether he was simply going to go to sleep. She'd heard enough of her friends complain about their husbands, their boyfriends, that she had to be prepared for just such a deflating outcome.
She'd misjudged Clancy. She was just about to curl up in a miserable ball when he grabbed her arm and hauled her over against him. "Come here," he said, tucking her up against him. She could smell the leather from her flight jacket beneath them, a familiar, comforting smell mixed with all the strange scents that filled the room. "Those aren't tears, are they, Red?" he said, touching her face lightly. "I didn't think you knew how to cry."
"I don't," she said in a wobbly voice, keeping her damp face against his shoulder.
He sighed, and his hands on her were almost frighteningly gentle. The Clancy she knew wasn't a gentle man. "Time for the next lesson."
"Next lesson?" she whispered, her body still trembling in belated reaction.
"Lesson number one was to enjoy it. Still don't care what I do to your body?"
"Shut up, Clancy."
He laughed. "Lesson number two is you always smoke after sex." He reached for his pack of cigarettes, shook one out of the pack and lit it, all without letting go of her. He took a drag, then set it between her lips.
"What if you make love to someone who doesn't smoke?" she asked when he'd taken the cigarette back to his own mouth. She'd never shared a cigarette with someone before. Somehow it seemed almost more intimate than what they'd shared with their bodies.
"I pick my women carefully."
"Do you?"
He must have heard the doubt in her voice. He cupped her head, tilting her face up so that he could look her in the eyes. She met his gaze unflinchingly, knowing her face was still streaked with tears, knowing what had just passed between them was still rocking her world on its foundations.
"Sometimes," he said in a soft voice. "And sometimes I make a mistake."
She didn't move. "Is that what I am? A mistake?"
He nodded gravely. "A very big one. For a man like me, you're the worst thing that could happen. I don't like strings, I don't want to be tied down, I don't want to get married or have children or a cottage in the country. And most of all, I don't want to fall in love with you."
Each word was a knife in her heart. "Who's asking you?" she said, pride keeping her voice steady.
"Red," he said, leaning over her and cupping her face in his hand, "The damnable thing is, I'm afraid it's too late. I already have." And he kissed her again before she could say what she wanted to so desperately, before she could say what she knew he didn't want to hear.
Before she could tell him she was in love with him, too.
Chapter Seventeen
Considering the fact that Clancy woke her up in the middle of the night to make love to her again, this time with a little less delicacy and an even greater degree of pleasure, and considering the fact that they were lying entwined on a welter of clothing with a scratchy wool blanket as their only covering, and considering that she'd never before slept with a man, and certainly not on top of a leather jacket with its zipper digging into her bare back, considering all those things, Angela slept surprisingly well.
When she woke, her cheek was pressed against Clancy's chest, his arm was around her, securing her against him, and her hair spread out around them. And her poor bruised forehead ached like crazy. Along with certain, less public parts of her body.
She stretched, very carefully, not wanting to wake the man sleeping so peacefully beside her, and to her amazement she found she had a lazy grin on her face. Not that it should have amazed her. After the night that had just passed, any woman would be smiling.
What did surprise her was the depth of her own passion. She hadn't thought she'd been missing much, particularly since, though she'd loved Hal Ramsey dearly, she hadn't really been interested in making their relationship more physical. She'd always assumed she'd marry and that sex would be a minor part of that relationship, something men liked to do and something that gave women babies whether they wanted them or not. She hadn't realized quite how powerful an experience it could be. Or how it would tie her even closer to a man who wanted no ties at all.
She sighed, snuggling against him and placed a gentle hand on his chest, on the dark matting of hair that never failed to fascinate her. His body was so different from hers, hard where she was soft, dark where she was pale, hair-covered where she was smooth. She found his arms particularly fascinating, the strength beneath the wiry muscles, the bone and sinew and heat of them. Her fingertips traced the subtle bulge of muscle with renewed wonderment, brushing against his inner arm.
"Are you by any chance making a pass at me?" Clancy hadn't even moved. She had had no idea he was awake and she yanked her hand away with sudden embarrassment.
He didn't let it get far. "Because if you are, I'm all in favor of it," he said, catching her wrist and pulling her hand back. "Look at me, Red."
She couldn't bring herself to do it. Burying her face against his shoulder, she shook her head. He caught her under the chin, forcing her face upward. "That's better," he murmured, brushing the hair away from her bandaged forehead. She concentrated on some point past his shoulder, unable to meet his searching gaze. "How's the head this morning?"
"A little sore."
"How's the rest of you? Probably in the same condition."
That shocked her enough to look at him, to meet the tender amusement in his dark eyes. He kissed her then, a brief, still-hungry kiss before pulling away. "Enough of that. You need a little time to recover before we move on to advanced aerobatics. You find the candy bar while I make up the fire. A night like the last one makes a man hungry."
They shared the candy bar with solemn grace, and th
en, to Angela's amazement, Clancy brought her some bathing water to heat on the stove and then made himself scarce. She never would have thought he'd have that much sensitivity, but then, she was discovering a great many things about the man she'd been fool enough to fall in love with.
The Nescafe tasted even better an hour later when they shared the one tin cup Clancy had in his life-saving emergency pack. He'd burned the wrecked cot, and she'd watched the canvas and wood go into the old stove with mixed emotions from her spot in the corner, curled up under the blanket. Clancy's earlier good cheer had faded, leaving him thoughtful, almost brooding, and his mood infected Angela. She sat there, huddled against the lingering morning chill of the cabin, wondering when he was going to tell her this couldn't go on.
His words surprised her. "Don't make this flight, Angel," he said, turning from the stove and sitting cross-legged on the floor, too far away for her to touch.
"I have to."
He spent time searching for his crumpled pack of cigarettes, pulling them out and lighting two. He passed her one, his eyes not meeting her. "This run's a damn-fool thing," he said, finally. "There are some nasty cross winds as you fly over the gulf, the Atlantic's very unforgiving, and who the hell would want to fly from Newfoundland to Havana?"
"Newfoundland's the first stop for any transatlantic flight," she said calmly enough. "You know that as well as I do—you've flown more of them. From here most people will want to get to New York as fast as they possibly can. I intend to see how fast that is. And a goodly number of them will be interested in flying on to Havana or Chicago or Florida. Hal picked Havana as his destination, and I'm following his route. I don't have the faintest idea why he chose Havana—"
"I do," Clancy said, stretching his long legs out in front of him, his booted feet almost touching the brass fender on the old iron stove. "He did it because of me."
"What are you talking about? He barely knew you."
"What makes you think that?"
"Because he never talked about you, and he'd tell me everything."