by Cait London
Silver fought her temper. “I like kissing, in general. You’re not my first set of lips, you know,” she managed to say as she moved away from him.
“Try again. You kiss like an innocent, sweetheart,” Nick murmured huskily before he brushed her lips with his and she could taste his delight and his hunger.
In the next heartbeat, he had turned and was making his way out of Maddy’s Hot Spot.
“You can’t walk away from me like that, Palladin,” Silver stated as Nick got into his pickup. Amen Flats’ sheriff cruised by, his Italian tenor cassettes crooning to the moonlit night. Howling dogs accompanied the music, and in Maddy’s Hot Spot, Patty Jo Black, a farmwife, began a throaty sexy song with Ed Rambo’s heavy beat guitar.
“I just did walk away from you, and from a mountain of trouble neither one of us needs.” Nick started the engme and placed the pickup in gear, needing to be alone with his thoughts. He left her standing alone, in the middle of the lamplit street, hands braced on her waist. The lady had tasted sweet and tender and hungry. His first taste of her slammed desire into Nick, and the need to possess her, to claim her. In that fierce heartbeat, he knew that she was his and that beneath the playgirl wrapper was an innocent. Another minute of that hungry petal-soft mouth beneath his, those fierce little gasps of pleasure as he tasted her, another second of her lush body pressing soft and warm against his, and Nick would have been unable to walk for a week.
He’d reached for an experienced woman and found an innocent, the discovery slimming into him, stunning him.
He glanced at the deer caught in his headlights, slowing for the passage of the small herd into the lush meadows high in the mountains.
Nick geared down to take the rough road leading to Tallchief Lake. Sex wasn’t the real problem; he’d always been in control of his body, understanding its needs. With Silver, deeper emotions snagged at him, the protective ones, those tender little bites slamming him off balance when he didn’t expect the punch. Joel and Rafe had settled their demons, but their women weren’t Silver and he wasn’t his brothers. He’d kept his emotions untapped, leashed, and while on the surface he cruised through life easily, Silver had reached her slender fingers into him and torn at the darkness prodding him. Tonight there was enough passion in him to hurt her—he opened his hands studying them. They were big hands, and he was a big man, with the same strength as his father. In passion, he could bruise Silver’s smooth skin, and the thought frightened the hell out of him. He ran his shaking hands over his steering wheel and forced himself to breathe evenly. He wasn’t affected one bit by Silver Tallchief.
The hard ache from his knees up to his scalp mocked him, pounded at him.
Nick rubbed his hand across his eyes. His father had raped a woman in front of Nick when he was just five, and now, the violent image slammed into him. With Silver, he could be just as forceful, as hungry and self-serving. He couldn’t afford to do that to any woman, much less an innocent.
How the hell did a man, pushed by desire, take an innocent and walk away?
Nick settled into driving, listening to the purr of the engine and let the night enclose him. He’d kept his life on course—he inhaled shakily, remembering Silver’s graceful body sheathed in Una’s bridal shift.
“Stand and fight.” What right did he have to enter the Tallchief family, suck mottoes from them and toss them at Silver? The only family he’d had was his brothers, and now they were happy with families; that should be enough. He could live on the borders of their lives—watching the love flow between them and their wives and children. But after one taste of Silver, Nick realized that he wanted more than his mechanical life, living on the fringes of other lives....
Headlights lasered into his rearview mirror, blinding him. Whoever was driving behind him on the lonely winding road down to Tallchief Lake was coming up fast, handling the road—Nick narrowed his eyes, studying the headlamps of the vehicle behind him—with the expertise of a race car driver. Smaller than his pickup truck and probably faster on level, paved road, the driver brought the vehicle to Nick’s back bumper.
Nick smiled coolly at the expected jolt to his pickup. He rubbed the scars across his knuckles, earned from when he and his brothers brawled in alleys, fighting to survive. If that was a drunken cowboy and his friends wanting to pick a fight, Nick was up to the task. Tonight, he was in the mood for a refresher course—anything to take his mind from the discovery that Silver was an innocent, very likely a virgin. A woman’s virginity—now that was an unstable commodity that he had never wanted to experience.
He eased onto a bumpy side road and, beneath the moonlit pines, parked near the lake. He got out slowly, noted the owl coursing high against the night sky, leaned against his pickup and waited.
The headlamps blinded him slightly, and the outline of a long legged, tall woman, packed with enough curves to send him aching again, stalked toward him. Her open hand slapped her thigh rhythmically as though she’d like to apply it to his cheek.
The lady could drive; she dived into challenges like a woman driven to win. Why did she live every day as though she had to pack two lifetimes into it?
Silver shoved her finger into his chest, prodding him. “What’s the big idea? Just who do you think you are? What gives you the right to kiss me like that?” Her voice raised, mdignant fury entering it as the night breeze brought her scent to him. “You walked away.”
“Why don’t you pack that really nice rear end back in that pickup and drive carefully the hell away from me?” Nick suggested in a cooler tone than he felt. In another minute, he’d be reaching for her, and he didn’t like the uncertainty of kissing a volatile, hungry virgin. He rubbed his hand along his jaw and glared at her.
She folded her arms, braced her long legs apart and smirked. “We’re monogamous, remember? I’ll bet that’s crimping your playboy style. Your dance card was pretty full at Maddy’s.”
Nick couldn’t resist. He strolled his fingertip down her flushed cheek to her soft bottom lip; he tapped it lightly. “Why don’t you just leave me alone?”
“My, my. Was that a big, daddy-bear growl I just heard? Do you really think I have a nice rear end?” she insisted in a flirtatious tone, leaning closer, and Nick groaned silently. She placed her hand along his cheek, and Nick caught her fragrance, his heartbeat kicking up.
Why had he just placed a kiss against that slender, delicate hand as if it was his right and his need? He jerked his head away from her touch.
Silver leaned closer, peering up at him. “I’m actually frightening you, aren’t I? You’ve got that dark, closed look, your eyebrows drawn together in that fierce line—”
She smoothed his eyebrows, and Nick jerked his head back. “Wary of me, darling?” she crooned, and stood on tiptoe to nip his bottom lip.
She’d pushed through his defenses. Nick caught her close, unsettled by his emotions. He feared the strength in his hands, her slender body nestled next to his, the emotions slamming hot and fierce into him. Then, with a reluctant groan, he took her mouth as he wanted, opening himself to her, diving into the woman beneath the secrets and feeding upon her.
“Nick?” She tensed at the touch of his open hand easing onto her breast, cupping her lightly.
Did she want him to stop? Could he?
With one arm around her waist, Nick hiked her off the ground, nuzzled that fragrant softness and found the hardened mystery of the tip, suckling gently through her shirt.
Silver’s hand held him close, her body trembling, the sounds coming from deep inside her, begging, startling him. Beneath his mouth her pulse kicked up, flames leaped between them and the urge to take her slammed into Nick painfully. “Is this what you want?” he asked, taking care to open her chambray shirt, button by button.
His throat dried at the sight of her breasts, lovely, cupped by lace and satin. There was a moment of protest, when Silver looked up at him helplessly, torn by her emotions.
“I have to—” She didn’t need to finish the sente
nce and gasped when Nick’s hand covered her breast. She went taut, sucking in air too rapidly, and panic flew across her face, sharpening it. Beneath his hand and the silky soft mound, her heart raced and a long shudder slid through her, an uneven sigh of pleasure. Her hands fluttered, then locked to him, fingertips digging in.
“At least this is honest,” he murmured, trailing his fingertip across the lacy bra and finding, one by one, the twin peaks nestled in the satin.
Another ripple of her body told him that the stakes had just been raised. He’d barely touched her and she’d ignited. An experienced woman would have—Nick studied Silver’s intent, flushed face, the quiver of her lips and the trembling of her body. Raw sexual need battled with something else Nick didn’t trust and didn’t like—the dark forces that could rule him. He glared at the woman who had torn him from the safety of his easy, practiced charm. He was angry at himself, at her—“You’re a virgin, aren’t you? You don’t have the slightest idea of what to do next.”
She stiffened, head jerking back, eyes flashing up at him. “I’ve got a good idea of the mechanics. I’m not asking you for a safari, Palladin.”
“Then you’d better stop kissing me like that,” he warned, and jerked the edges of her shirt together in his fist. He lowered her feet to the ground, jerked her to him and wished he weren’t shaking with the need to take her. “Got it?”
“You’re not very sweet,” she said between her teeth, and sank her fingertips deeper into his shoulder.
The silent warning only set him off, made him want more. “Never have claimed to be, but I’m the man who is going to be in your bed, and you’re going to tell me a few things before that happens. We’ll take it from there.”
“Sex on your terms? When you want? I could have you in one minute flat” She wasn’t giving him anything, tossing back a challenge on a platter.
Nick smiled, feeling suddenly boyish. Silver did that, ripping off the scars and giving him a taste of delight, of youth and life. He let the light, easy laughter curl through him, warming him. He tugged her closer, his knuckles brushing those soft breasts, lingering against the hardened delicate peaks. “It takes longer than that, honey. I intend to be very careful with you. There’s all that sweet kissing to get warmed up—and I do enjoy those hungry little noises you make.”
“I make my own decisions, Palladin. You’re trying to set up your own schedule, and I’ve never dealt well on someone else’s terms. Now, let me think—duh—I think you’re old-fashioned, the man setting the pace. Well, ace, times have changed.”
He almost laughed aloud. “What are you going to do, sweetheart? Haul me to your cave and have me? This is a joint decision, Silver. There were two people in that kiss. You tried to suck my soul out of me. Maybe you did. for just that heartbeat.”
He fought the need to kiss her and knew the disaster that waited for them—“I know who I am, where I come from...I don’t believe in legends and bonding like the Tallchiefs. Aye,” he said, reminding her of her Scots heritage, “you won’t find me offering a bridal price for you. I’ll wear the Tallchiefs’ kilts and hold their babies, but dreams and legends aren’t for me. I’m not your prince, fair lady.”
The cold, bare truth of what he was, of what his heritage had made him, settled around Nick like a shroud. He allowed her to tug his hand away, her warmth lingering on his skin. “I haven’t asked you to be my prince...you are a typical, thickheaded, arrogant, traditional male, packed with a hefty ego.... I am check ing out,” she said tightly, furiously, and turned to walk to her vehicle.
Oh, hell, Nick thought as Silver’s four-wheeler barreled out of sight. He looked at the icy lake, measured the ache low in his body and began to strip.
Moments later, he furiously plowed through the icy water, arm over arm, grimly determined to freeze his need for Silver. The call from shore caused him to stop, treading the black, whitecapped water. Silver stepped from the shadows of the pines onto a moonlit rock and held his clothing up high. “Hey, Palladin. Be quiet when you come in tonight, will you? You won’t be needing these—you’ve got all that lovely arrogance to keep you warm.”
After an hour of reading Elizabeth’s letters to Una once more, snuggling down with the latest issue of Scents Magazine, and eating a huge tewarmed cinnamon roll from Elspeth, Silver listened to Nick’s pickup skid to a stop. He slammed into the house a moment later. While the shower ran, she smiled, nestled in her bed, glanced at the chair propped against the doorknob and smoothed the Tallchief plaid Elspeth had made for her.
She caressed Elizabeth’s old letters, carefully wrapped in blue frayed ribbon and kept safely by the Tallchief family all these years. Added to the letters Silver already possessed, these letters told of Elizabeth’s love, how it grew each day for Liam Tallchief. The carved cedar box containing the letters, preserved in a bed of wildflowers, rose petals and lavender, had been found by Sybil and returned to the Tallchiefs.
When Nick had kissed her tenderly, she hadn’t expected the delight or the hunger, or the need to fling herself at him—She listened to Nick prowling through the kitchen—coinfortable, friendly sounds. Not that Silver wanted to share her life with him; she couldn’t. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches had served her well enough through the years.
Nick’s footsteps passed into his room, and Silver settled down, punching her pillow and hugging it close. A squeak at the door brought her sitting up in bed; Nick slowly pushed the door open, the chair skidding over the wood floor until it toppled.
The dim light from the moonlit window caught his cold smile, his shoulder gleamed, braced against the doorway. He placed his bare foot on the fallen chair and shoved it aside as if nothing could keep him from her. “Having fun, are we?”
“You really shouldn’t go skinny-dipping, Mr. Palladin.” Silver managed to keep her tone very, very prim.
“Uh-huh,” he said tightly, a muscle tensing in his jaw.
He was so nettled, so tasty looking, dressed only in his jeans, that Silver couldn’t help grinning at him. “Is our monogamous relationship over, dear?”
The light strolled down the triangle of hair on his chest to his flat stomach, “An experienced woman would know not to taunt a man she has just kissed the living daylights out of.”
“Me? I kissed you?”
“That’s how I see it, sweetheart. You kissed me,” he murmured smugly. “You came to me. If we’re having the relationship you want, it’s one-to-one all the way and there are rules.”
“You make me sound like I’m interested. Like I would actually let you set rules for me... I could put my hands around that big, thick, arrogant neck and squeeze slowly.”
“There you are again, wanting to put your hands on my body. Please be gentle,” he murmured before leaving her room and quietly closing the door behind him.
“Fiona will have Ian here at one o’clock for you to baby-sit.... Aye, you’re in a mood, little brother.” Joel slapped a paperwrapped parcel down on the barn bench near Nick. The mid-June morning rang with meadowlarks and calves frisking in the fields, cows calling to them.
“Two weeks of Silver would do that to anyone, and if you tell her that she’s getting to me, I won’t baby-sit. You’ll lose all those summer nights camping in that tepee with your wife.” Nick, who was pounding nails into the corral fence, tossed the hammer aside and ripped off his leather gloves. He tossed Joel a piece of the Silver-puzzle. “The woman doesn’t like mirrors.”
“Or you?”
Nick eyed Joel’s smirk; a man had to keep his pride with older brothers. “Women like me. I’m cute and lovable. I’m charming.”
Joel chuckled and punched Nick’s shoulder, a friendly blow, but with enough power to remind Nick that they were equally matched. “Baby brother, give it up. Make it easy on yourself. Apologize to her, do what you have to do to make her see that she’s the only woman you’ve really wanted. Right now, she’s in the lead and you’re wearing big, bad bear signs. Mamie, by the way, is delighted with The Nose. Grand
mother said she knew she’d saved you for some reason, and now she knows why. She’d really like you to—”
“Say it and die,” Nick warned daddy, too aware of Mamie’s shielded matchmaking comments.
Joel smirked and looked at Silver walking toward the house, dressed in a cotton T-shirt and long, tight jeans, her arms filled with a wildflower and lavender bouquet. “Now that is a woman. Got to be going. Married life, you know. That’s a copy of my favorite cookbook. Women require more than steak and potatoes and chili. I saw The Nose working out on the high school’s gymnastic equipment, and from her skill, flipping over bars and flinging through the air, I’d say she hasn’t spent much time in the kitchen. You’ll have to learn. Feeding women helps the taming pnocess—yours.”
He ducked the bucket Nick tossed at him.
Silver returned from her long, lonely walk from Elspeth’s and a lovely afternoon poring over Una’s journals. Just as they had for the two and a half weeks of her visit, the flock of sheep scattered, flowing over the peaceful green meadows. Amen Flats and the Tallchief families were timeless, a Camelot that slid lovingly from generation to generation. And somewhere in the lime green meadows high on Tallchief Mountain, or in the jutting rocks, or in Tallchief Lake, Elizabeth’s gray pearls waited—
Silver swept out a hand and ripped a tall stalk of buffalo grass from its mooring, crushing it. The Tallchiefs cared too easily, and enjoyed her prowling through their legends, their inheritance. They weren’t making it easy, claiming her for their own when she had just escaped her own family. She’d had enough layers of guilt to last a lifetime.
Why did Elspeth have to show Silver how to sit at the loom, thought to be Una’s, to weave the timeless patterns? Why did Elspeth tell her to feel the wool, listen to what her heart tells her to do and to follow it? Elspeth saw too much, with her Celtic seer and Native American shaman gifts.