by Julie Miller
"It's Kel, ma'am," her host corrected, with neither a frown nor a smile. "Good night."
With her hand snared firmly in Hawk’s grasp, she padded noiselessly down the hall at his side. His gallant gesture touched her, filled her with a sense of security and importance. Unless there was a "tutoring session" or audience involved, Walter had never once walked her to her door or escorted her to her car when they parted for the evening. That Hawk would claim the right and make the effort to do so warmed the wounded part of her, and made her final good-night feel that much more precious.
Once he seemed sure of her willingness to hold on to him, he softened his grip. Sarah relaxed, too, smiling beside his shoulder. "Is there something going on I should know about? It sounded like a pretty heavy discussion when I came in."
She felt the tension crackling around him and wished she could withdraw the question. He slowed on the stairs, but squeezed her hand reassuringly, silently asking for time to work through whatever was troubling him. She'd grant him anything so long as he didn't push her away.
At the top of the staircase he spoke again. "We're negotiating with the local authorities whether to return the treasures to the tomb or donate them to the national museum."
"They have to go back to the tomb," insisted Sarah in a flash of insight that preceded her own conscious agreement.
She halted beside Hawk, confused by the surety of her decision, but knowing with absolute rightness that the treasures of Meczaquatl should be restored to their intended resting place. Hawk looked down at her, the brilliant light shining through the midnight color of his eyes evident even in the shadows on the landing.
"Yes," he whispered. With just the tip of his index finger, he traced a semicircle around her brow and cheekbone. "Are you sure there's not a little bit of psychic in you?"
He looked so proud, so relieved by her words. But just as quickly, just as profoundly, a mask shuttered his eyes and snuffed out the light. He withdrew his hand, leaving a chill where he had touched her.
"Hawk?"
With the silence of a panther, he pulled her to her room, pushed her inside and closed the door behind him. She spun around to face him, wanting to question his abrupt actions. But the air in the room seemed suddenly alive, raw with danger and unpredictability. Caged with the wild animal, Sarah clutched the front of her robe and hugged herself. She trembled with fear. Not of Hawk, but of the demon inside that he worked so hard to master.
"What is it?" she asked, sensing his desperation, not knowing how to help him or ease his torment or even to save herself.
The lamp beside her bed cast a soft glow across the room, lighting him only up to his shoulders. With his back pressed to the door, she was transfixed by the powerful rise and fall of his chest as he breathed deeply to regain whatever control he had lost.
"Tell me you want me to stay."
He stepped into the light, letting her see the clarity in his gaze, letting her know the raspy-throated request came from the man himself, fully aware of who and where he was, and not from a possessing spirit dulling his mind and actions.
He spread his arms to either side, opening his stance and presenting himself like an unarmed man surrendering to the authorities. "Even if it's just to talk, or hold you. I promise I won't do anything you don't want—"
"I want you to stay."
She cut him off, making her point perfectly clear, understanding with equal clarity how much she wanted him and how desperately he needed her. She remembered his struggle with Prini's crown and understood how she had pulled him from its spell. He needed that kind of salvation from her now.
And she needed whatever he would offer. "I want you to stay," she repeated.
His nostrils flared in a ragged intake of breath. He pursed his lips and breathed out on one long, languid whisper of air. But though his body relaxed, the coiled tension never left his eyes. She fell into the darkness there, struggled to catch her breath in the clear black pools of night. Like a hunter, he had snared her, and she was powerless to escape.
She didn't want to try.
Frightened of what would happen next, and even more frightened that it wouldn't happen, Sarah couldn't speak. Her chin quivered as she searched for the right words to ask him to be with her, to love her, to complete the promise of what he had shown her the night before.
This last night in Tenebrosa might be their last night. Her last chance… her only chance to be with the man she loved. Her only chance to create a memory more precious than any other. This one night when the man she loved wanted to be with her. Wanted her.
This time, he saw her request. Reaching out, he cupped her face gently between his hands and tilted her mouth up to his. "I want it, too," he whispered in the instant before his lips touched hers.
Rising on tiptoe, Sarah leaned into the kiss, curling her fingers around his forearms for balance. He tunneled his fingers into her hair and cradled the back of her head, pulling her beneath the volatile exploration of his tongue. He traced the seam of her lips and then plunged inside, staking a claim she'd waited her whole life to surrender.
He tasted of something dark and dangerous, warmed with the sweet tang of finely aged rum. She stroked her tongue along his, and a feral call rumbled deep in his throat. The sound vibrated down along her spine and spread along the fraying tendrils of her nerve endings. It took her a few moments to recognize the soft, mewling sounds answering in her own throat.
Even with her limited experience, she understood the chained beast in him fighting to free himself. She breathed in through her nose, willing her mind to catch up to the primitive staccato of her heartbeat. He wanted something from her, needed something more… if she only knew what to give him. He slid his hands down her neck, the rough pads of his fingers soothing the pulse point at the base of her throat.
And then his healing lips were there, and she forgot all her thoughts. It was all she could do to feel, to keep up with the web of sensations unraveling deep inside her. He slid his hands up and over the delicate ridge of her collarbone, beneath her robe to her shoulders. Her fingers scurried along his sleeve, not knowing where to hold on, where to touch him.
Turning her, he slipped the robe off her arms and backed her against the door. She dug her fingers into his wrists for balance as he pinned her there, his mouth finding hers again and driving her into the smooth, unyielding wood at her back. His lips followed the path of his hand, tasting her neck, sipping at the pounding warmth of her pulse, pushing aside the nightgown and supping at the smooth, round strength of her shoulder.
Sarah angled her body to urge him to explore further, to learn where else he might place his lips. As she turned, her hips brushed his, catching the robe between them where it fell. The hard, solid column of his thighs yielded as little to her soft curves as the door at her back.
A spark of an unpleasant memory flared in her mind, but she quickly snuffed it out. This was Hawk loving her, wanting her, and she knew she couldn't bear to stop him.
But beyond conscious thought, she twisted her hips, squirming away from the sensation of being trapped. She brushed against the masculine evidence of his desire, heard him moan a sweet native word against her skin. She tried to think of the things he had said, the words of praise she wanted to believe.
Her hands, which had clung to him for support, now flattened across his shoulders. He reclaimed her lips, and she focused on the sleek power of his addictive mouth, losing herself in the magical beauty of his kiss. But then he shifted his body closer and rubbed his denim-clad leg against the juncture of her thighs.
Her body throbbed in one pounding pulse beat. The shock of her reaction to that one intimate touch froze her for an instant.
An instant too long.
A wave of cooling air whispered across her body. Did Hawk pull away? Or had she pushed him?
She curled her hand into a fist as she reached out, grasping nothing but air. Hawk turned his back to her, shoving his fingers through his hair and stalking across the
room to the window.
"Did I do something wrong?" She barely recognized the throaty timbre of her own voice.
"Don't ever say that." His sharp words bounced off the windowpane. His shoulders heaved in a cleansing breath before he turned to face her. "Did it feel wrong to you?"
His shaman eyes pinned her across the room. Even with him blending into the shadows, she knew she couldn't hide the truth from him. "No. Not wrong. Just… new."
"I'm sorry if I scared you, if I went too fast. If I reminded you of… someone else." He hitched his shoulders in an uncharacteristic shrug. His unexpected show of doubt touched a responding chord in her. This proud man's hesitancy made him more human, made her more powerful.
Walter had denigrated her, taken her uncertainties and used them as leverage to raise himself above her. Hawk embraced his doubts and her own with honesty, and for the first time Sarah realized that she shouldn't be ashamed of her inexperience. She should be accepting of it. She should accept herself, just as Hawk accepted her. Just as she accepted him.
"You didn't scare me," she offered by way of apology, moving to the middle of the room in a literal attempt to meet him halfway.
The hard lines around his mouth softened. "I want this to be right for you. I want to make this night as perfect as a man can make it for his woman."
His woman?
His words alone rekindled a spark in that most primitive part of her. The heat of it blossomed and spiraled through her, warming her with its energy, restoring that fragile scrap of ego held together by hopes and dreams and sheer will.
"If I'm with you, it will be perfect."
"Those are powerful words to say to a man, schoolmarm."
"I've never said them to anyone else."
At last he joined her at the foot of the bed, standing inches away, but not yet touching her. Instead, his hands hovered in the air around her, as though tracing her outline like an invisible sculpture. Could this man caress her aura? Could he touch the air surrounding her and make it feel like the stroke of fingers against her skin?
As profound as his touch, she felt his comforting embrace deep in her heart "I don't want to say or do anything that makes you uncomfortable, that makes you doubt yourself."
"You're the counselor. What kind of therapy would you prescribe for me?"
Hawk's hands stopped in midair. His eyes lit with surprise. "Miss Mack, I do believe you're flirting with me."
Sarah licked her lips, nervous about the idea taking shape as she spoke. Hawk's gaze darted to the movement of her tongue, and suddenly her whole mouth went dry.
"Well, counselor?" she prompted.
Hawk dropped his hands and cleared his throat, apparently craving a drink, or something more, just as she did. "I'd let you lead us through this. You would need to be the one in control of how we proceed. That way, you could recognize any feelings of panic and alter the progression of things."
"Like this?" She brushed the strands of hair that had fallen across his forehead back into place. "I could do anything, and you'd go along with it?"
His gaze zeroed in on hers, dancing with wry amusement. "Whatever you want."
This rangy, hungry, male jungle cat was hers to command. Feeling empowered by his willingness to play, and thrilled by the danger of it, she closed her eyes for a moment and let her imagination come to life. "I like it when you're not wearing your shirt." She stumbled over the first words, getting used to the idea of taking charge. "You have a very nice—“ she swallowed hard, “—chest."
"Look at me, Sarah. Don't be afraid of me."
She opened her eyes and noticed the tinge of color in his cheeks. Had she embarrassed him with the compliment? Could anything she said possibly have that kind of effect on a man? "I'm not. It's just that no one's ever asked what I wanted. It's harder than I thought to put it into words."
"Just speak from the heart. I'll listen to whatever you have to say. And I'll listen even when you don't have the words to say it."
Hawk's vow settled over her like a blessing, easing her doubts.
"You're nothing like Walter," she whispered, wanting to give back some of the reassurance he had given her. "He was never this patient with me."
"That's his loss," he said, the brackets of strain fading at the corners of his mouth. "So tell me, schoolmarm. What do you want?"
With the generous gift of Hawk's healing words, Sarah's shy heart grew bolder. "Would you take off your shirt?"
"No."
"No?" Her initial shock abated at the subtle hint of a smile on his lips.
She'd never seen that boyish sparkle in his eyes before. The breadth of his shoulders and the careworn lines on his face reminded her that he was a man in his prime—strong, earthy, a force of nature to be reckoned with. But his willingness to play this game with her humanized him, made him approachable. This was a man she could trust.
He crossed his arms in the time-honored stance of a dare being made. His powerful biceps strained the lightweight denim he wore. "You take it off me."
Sucking in a fortifying breath, Sarah rose to the challenge. She started at the top, undoing the first two buttons with clinical, perfunctory efficiency. Then she ran into the roadblock of his forearms across his middle.
"A little help?" She touched his wrist and glanced up. Watching her with the same keen intensity of a big cat in the circus cage with its trainer, he lowered his arms to his sides.
Hampered by a sudden shallowness of breath, she fumbled with the third button, her fingers stiff and unsure as she pushed it through the hole. When she reached the fourth button, his shirt veed open, revealing an inviting strip of coppery skin and that oblong black stone he wore around his neck.
She brushed against the stone, felt the heat it had absorbed from his skin. The escaping warmth should have thawed her fingers. Instead it only slowed her progress. With all the awkward anticipation of a child trying to unwrap a gift without tearing the paper, she slowly undid the fifth and sixth buttons.
By now she had reached the belt on his jeans. Her hands hovered in the air in front of the buckle. She wanted that next step, but not quite yet. What should she do? What had Walter said a man liked?
Hawk's rough palm cupped her cheek and turned her face up to his. "Whatever you want."
With that husky reminder, Sarah banished all thoughts of the blond, careless egomaniac who had crippled her so. She absorbed Hawk's strength—his gentle touch, his beautiful voice, his compelling eyes—and let it become her own.
She trailed her gaze over his prominent cheekbones, across the rock-solid dimension of his jaw, and down the tanned cords of his throat, stopping at the point where her hands rested on his shirtfront. Then, enjoying her journey of discovery, she pushed the material to either side, grazing her hands across his shoulders and down over the swells and shallows of his powerful arms as she removed his shirt.
She marveled in the glory of the man before her, simply filling her gaze and storing in her memory the sculpted perfection of healthy living and Mother Nature's handiwork. Her fingers tingled to share the delight of her eyes. Equally aware of his body's utter stillness and the unblinking scrutiny of the midnight gaze that followed her every move, Sarah spread her fingers over the sinewed planes of his upper chest.
The sizzling electricity she had felt earlier scorched her palms. She pressed with her fingertips, holding on, unwilling to break the contact. The heat of it seeped into her wrists and spread up her arms, firing her pulse and melting her lingering misgivings into mush. She dragged her hands over the swell of muscle, brushed across his flat, bronze nipples and stopped, feeling the quiver of skin beneath her sensitized palms.
"You like that?" she said softly, afraid of breaking the beautiful serenity that surrounded them in this private, intimate world.
His answering moan emboldened her. She stroked him again. The swift rise and fall of his chest matched the pace of her own breathing.
Pulling her hands lower, she ran them across the spare form of
his rib cage and out onto his sides, where she encountered a thin mound of gauze and adhesive tape. The rough textures of plastic and cotton disrupted the smooth connection between them. In a rush of concern, she pulled away, angling around to check the first-aid work.
"I didn't hurt you, did I?" She smoothed the ends of the tape on his skin. "I don't want anything to—“
"God, woman, don't stop!"
He seized her wrists and brought her palms back to his chest, covering her hands with his to hold her there. "I've been stitched and doctored," he said, the wild look in his eyes rendering her speechless. "There are other parts of me that need tending. Take pity on a man, and don't stop your therapy now."
The husky plea in that sinfully sexy request blurred the questions in her mind. Her therapy? Or his? Did it matter?
She wanted this man in every way a woman could want. His body, heart, soul, faith and trust. Maybe for just this one night. And, she hoped, for all her tomorrows.
But for now, it didn't matter. She simply needed him. Needed him...
A willing captive, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the swell of his pectoral muscle beneath their hands. She kissed the indentation near the vee of his necklace. Then she closed her mouth over one flat, male nipple. She felt his hands tighten on hers, heard him catch his breath. She kissed him again, flicked her tongue around the taut bud.
She pressed her nose into his chest, inhaling his earthy scent, kissing him again. His hands left hers and moved to her shoulders. Sarah clung to him, learning the feel of his shape, learning the taste of his skin, losing herself in her love for him.
"So beautiful," she whispered, moving her lips up his neck and discovering the hollow beneath his chin. "Hawk?"
"Hmm?" His response rumbled through the skin beneath her lips. His large hands kneaded her shoulders, caressed her back, tried to mind his promise to let her lead them through this.
"Will you kiss me? I love the way you kiss me."
"Oh, yeah," he said in a growl, and like a man triumphant, he cupped her face and pulled her beneath his mouth.