“Maggie—”
“Don’t be Maggie-in’ me. Jus’ like his pa. Takin’ to the bottle. Shame of it is you could stop it.”
“I’m asking you again, Maggie, don’t interfere.”
“You love him, don’t you? You were happier lovin’ him than you’ve ever been. I don’t care what happened betwixt the two of you. Ain’t nothin’ that lovin’ can’t heal.”
Lacey had no choice but to take the tray Maggie shoved into her hands. “Go on, honey,” she admonished. “You’re a strong woman. The Reina can’t heal what’s hurtin’ you. He can.”
She stood for long minutes after Maggie left, uncertain what to do. Her pride demanded she leave Rafe alone. Her heart ached for the loss of what they shared. Her body cried in hunger against the emptiness she fed it.
Lacey juggled the tray and opened the door. Rafe stood with his back toward her in front of the fireplace. One arm rested on the mantel alongside two empty bottles. She was staring so intently at his back that she started when he spoke.
“Come in. I wondered how long it would take you to come to me.”
Her heart began to beat rapidly as a shiver of fear snaked its way up her spine.
“Well? Come in and join me,” he urged in a deceptively lazy voice. “Or are you afraid?”
He didn’t sound drunk, and Lacey couldn’t help but respond to the taunt. “I’m certainly not afraid of you.”
His harsh laugh grated on her ears as he slowly turned around to face her. “You should be, bruja.”
The blatant arrogance of his gaze infuriated her. She felt drawn back in time for a suspended moment, to the first day she had met that gaze in this room. Her chin lifted in a challenging manner, but a small warning sounded that she had best not goad him.
He lifted the bottle he held and drank from it, his eyes pinning her where she stood. When he was done, he walked to the sideboard and filled a glass that he held out to her. “Here, princess, take it. You look as if you could use something to put a little warmth back into you.”
Lacey set the tray down and went to him. She shoved the glass aside, ignoring the spill of liquor. “You look as if you’ve had enough for both of us.”
“Enough?” His laugh was scornful. “Por Dios, bruja, for what’s eating me, there would never be enough.”
Giving him a disgusted look, Lacey went to the fireplace and began to pick up the broken shards of glass. “Is that why you’re getting drunk, Rafe? Something’s eating you? Or did you think you’d get away with your scheme to have it all?”
“No, witch,” he denied in too soft a voice, watching her as she stood and faced him. “The liquor you sneer at, princess, is only keeping me from acting on what is bothering me.”
She paled under his intense gaze, wishing she didn’t understand what he was talking about. But she did. All too well she recalled the wildness they could call forth from each other. Earlier in his room she nearly broke her pride’s back to answer that desire.
“You really shouldn’t have come in here, Lacey,” he stated in that same soft, deceptive tone, moving toward her.
Lacey backed away. Rafe was dangerous to her strength of will when he touched her. She refused to let it happen again.
“Maybe,” he continued, as if he didn’t notice her retreat, “I wanted you to come to me.”
“Stop it, Rafe. Go finish drowning in that bottle. I won’t let you use me—”
“Use you? Is that what you call it?”
Lacey darted for the door, but he was there first, locking it. She made a grab for the key, but he sent her spinning into the room.
With deliberate moves he came toward her, pulling his shirt from his pants. Lacey flattened herself against the wall. A tiny warning flagged him, telling him not to touch her, not when he was losing control. But all Rafe could hear was her taunting voice saying he used her.
With her hands splayed against the wall, wishing it would somehow open and allow her to escape, Lacey realized her foolishness in listening to Maggie. It was a mistake to have come in here. He stripped off his shirt, tossing it aside. Lacey was intent on running.
Then, like a hunter snagging prey, it was too late. He leaned against her, his hands on either side of her shoulders, blocking her. Lacey swallowed against the constricting dryness in her throat, refusing to look up at him. She was afraid to see him gloating. But she couldn’t seem to close her eyes against the sight of his chest, a wall of tautly controlled muscles scored with black hair.
“I’ll say this once, Lacey. I haven’t touched another woman. I don’t want anyone but you. Stop being so afraid to trust me and what you feel for me.”
“I can’t trust you,” she whispered, drawing a ragged breath. “It almost destroyed me.”
“And me. You can … you are destroying me.” His fingers bit into her shoulders, dragging her into his arms. “You set a fire burning inside me, witch, and it’s fast raging out of control. I want you.”
The blatant proof pressed against her body, but Lacey tossed out her last desperate gamble.
“Prove it, Rafe. Sign over the Reina to me. Show me how much you want me.”
“That’s your price?”
His eyes were feral and savage glaring down at her. Lacey swallowed. She nodded weakly. Rafe smiled. But there was no softening in his eyes. He stepped back and, with a terrifying jerk, tore her shirt.
He cut off her scream with his lips. A brief, harsh kiss that meant to subdue and punish. When he lifted his head, he continued to rip her shirt.”
“Let me see the puta worth the Reina,” he grated from between clenched teeth.
Lacey’s struggles were useless, and she drew on her pride as the cold comfort to stand there when he was done.
With one hand he drew her away from the wall, holding her hand high while he turned her around and around.
“You named your price, and now hear mine. Marriage.”
He swept her up into his arms, warning her with his look not to cry out. Lacey knew he had snapped whatever control he had, and she wanted to die when he opened the door to confront Maggie.
“Get out of my way,” he ordered, taking grim satisfaction in the way Lacey was forced to cling to him to hide her nudity.
One look at the implacable set of his face, and Maggie had no choice but to step aside. He stalked away from her and in the middle of the courtyard stopped and turned.
“Send someone into San Angela, Maggie. Tell the preacher that the Independence Day celebration tomorrow will mark an end to Lacey’s.”
Lacey’s head jerked up, her hands pounded his back. “No, Maggie! Don’t listen to him.”
Rafe hurried across the tiles, kicking open the door to his room. Lacey heaved and twisted in his arms as he used his heel to slam it closed.
“You can’t do this, Rafe!”
“I can. I did and I meant it. You named your price, and I’m willing to meet it. After you marry me.” Swearing softly, he dumped her in the middle of his bed.
Lacey spared one brief thought to Maggie listening to her screams while she fought him. Ruthlessly and silently Rafe subdued her, his face a mask of cold fury as she spit out her hate for him. Panting, her eyes the last storm of resistance, Lacey couldn’t move when he threw one powerful leg over both of hers to hold her still, her hands firmly entrenched in his ironclad grip.
“You damn hellcat! Settle down.”
“Let me go and I will.” Her gaze spoke of vengeance.
“I told you I can’t let you go.”
Lacey froze as the soft, husky sound of his voice added to the promise blazing in his eyes.
“I’ll calm you down, witch. I’ve let you play wildcat long enough. It’s time you learn to sheath your claws.”
“So you can hurt me again!” The full throbbing swell
of his manhood pressed intimately against her, beating out its own message of need. The fire banked by earlier touches flared to life. She couldn’t let him win, she just could not, she groaned inwardly, twisting weakly in his arms.
“Stop fighting me. You want me as badly,” he murmured, lifting his head, and with a sudden move of his hand, he forced her to look at him.
The shadowed light lent a sinister cast to his features as she stared up at him. His mouth was taut with repressed anger and seemed cruel to her, or was it only the power his lips had over her that made it appear so? His patience was gone. Lacey felt it leave at a cost she could only imagine. Hadn’t loving him proved what a demanding, hungry lover he was? She felt his muscles strain against her body and once more gambled that she was making the right choice. She had to prove she didn’t want him.
With her eyes closed she forced herself to remember the sight of April in his arms. His mouth closed over hers. Soft, warm, coaxing. And Lacey felt the insidious heat curl inside her. Her mind was more than willing to fight him, but she couldn’t fight the betrayal of her own body.
Her arms rose of their own volition to pull him close. Her mouth opened to the possessive probe of his tongue, and she wanted to hate him for proving that she couldn’t deny him.
He ended the kiss too soon, his lips hovering above her mouth. Rafe whispered, “I won’t take from you. But before this night is over, you’ll give…”
Faint blushes of pink creased the sky when Lacey opened her eyes. She tried to move and found her long hair caught under Rafe’s bare shoulder, his arm and leg thrown over her body in a possessive embrace even sleep could not break.
Bittersweet, the thought of her body’s betrayal last night flooded her to meld with anger at Rafe for the ease of his conquest and her ultimate surrender. The thoughts brought a renewal of her own humiliation. Her legs ached, her thighs were sore, and overriding these pains was the intense knowledge that he had kept his promise and made her give, all he demanded, all he had wanted, and all she had vehemently sworn to deny him.
Flushing with the memory of the teasing taunts that kept her at a wanton, fever pitch of desire for him in the night hours, she released a small cry of frustration. She was too late to stifle the sound. Rafe began to stir. How could she feel both love and hate for him?
“Impatient so early, bright eyes?” he murmured in a sleep-laden voice as he opened his eyes.
“I’m impatient to get away from you,” she whispered with cold desperation. He moved suddenly, pulling the quilt away, and her gasp was sheer outrage. She closed her eyes against the flare of desire glowing in his black ones, their gaze a caress she could almost feel on her bare flesh.
Rafe smiled. “You look like a soft, warm, and uncommonly desirable kitten this morning, Lacey. I admit I thoroughly enjoyed sheathing the cat’s claws.” He kissed the sweet curve of her shoulder, nipping her, then soothing it with his tongue. Lazily he traced the soft skin exposed to his eyes, smiling deeper when he felt the small ripple that tremored her body. Her eyes, when he looked up, were still heavy-lidded with the little sleep they had had and danced warningly at him. His smile became wicked, his touch firmed, and his mouth found the life pulse in her throat. Her hair, shaded with burnished shadows, was tousled on the pillow beside him. Lacey looked wild, untamed, and his body responded to her silent challenge.
“Rafe. Rafe, don’t,” she cried out when his hand covered her taut stomach.
“Look at me, Lacey,” he coaxed, stilling a flood of need that he couldn’t begin to explain. He had made love to her through the night, taking her over and over until she had cried out with a wild hunger and, lastly, with love. And still he wanted her. “Are you determined to fight both of us out of some misplaced need for revenge? How can you deny your own feelings?” He fought to keep calm, but his lips thinned at her move away from him. “Didn’t I show you,” he stressed, pulling her close, “just how damn foolish that was?”
Yes! she wanted to yell, but bit the word back and faced him. Why did he make her war with herself? The heat was quickening inside her and turning her body traitor once more. She wanted so much to hate him for it, for forcing a response against her stubborn will to his caresses, to his lips that lingered with agonizing madness over the curving side of her breast before lazily claiming the pebbled rose peak as a prize. Her body knew what it wanted, what it needed and craved. Rafe knew, too, he had fed every aching desire from the very first. Just as from the first, her fear of him leaving her nothing of herself had become a reality. It was that thought that made her whisper, “You have nothing more to prove to me. You’re the one who had his revenge. Wasn’t it enough?”
Rafe’s head snapped up, eyes blazing. He captured her mouth, suddenly, savagely, like a hawk swooping for prey. He touched her until she silently pleaded for release.
His lips seared her, branding her his, until she cried out against his mouth. There was no gentle softness now, only a ruthless fire that was Rafe’s to fuel until she was shaking and half-fainting beneath him. Lacey knew she was lost, and with a sob torn from inside her, she arched her body up to his. It was an offering, a lover’s entreaty to be taken, a woman’s surrendering plea of need. In the deepest recess of her mind it was complete capitulation to her lover.
“You’re a fire, wild witch that haunts me,” he whispered, trailing kisses down her throat. “But you’re mine. Only mine.”
Before she could move, he slid down the length of her body, his hands holding her hips still, and Lacey was poised to receive the plundering manhood that offered a flight to where only Rafe could take her. She moaned, desperate for ease from the tight knot that coiled inside her. Under his marauding lips and hands she now fought him to take her.
“No,” he breathed against her skin. Her eyes flew open at the feel of his lips brushing like hot silk against her thigh. “Not yet, bright eyes. Not nearly time for you.”
She twisted, crying out, and then remained stock still when he tongued the flesh in a maddening arc along the soft inner skin.
“Rafe? No, don’t … please … you can’t…” But even to her own ears her protest sounded like a lover’s call for more. She wanted to stop him, needed to regain some control over her body, which was wild, held on the edge of precipice. His hands slipped upward slowly, first cupping her breasts, then teasing both rigid peaks as he delved into her woman’s softness over and over.
Straining against him, fighting the tide that surged inside her, Lacey cried out, “I hate you! I damn you and hate you!” Her hands reached for his head, pulling him closer. She writhed against the fire-tipped tongue that branded her for his own.
Shaking with throbbing release when it finally laid claim to her, she offered no protest when he slid his body up and over hers and entered her with a powerful thrust.
There was self-loathing for the body that so easily betrayed her, eagerly thrusting rhythmically with him. She hated the arms that moved across his taut shoulders, her fingers splayed over the rippling muscles of his back.
She wanted to despise the desire awakening all over again, hearing him murmur, “Feed me your hate, Lacey. Show me. Show me how much you hate me.”
Mindless now, wildly craving release once more, she moaned against his mouth while he drove into her, demanding what he gave: everything. They were one in a breathtaking moment, reaching a height on a savage crest that knew no end.
She passed from passion’s aftermath into a half-dreaming sleep with the sound of Rafe’s husky voice. “Your hate turns to love, Lacey, and someday you’ll be woman enough to understand your fear to admit it.”
Hours later, when she awoke to the bright, streaming sunlight falling across her flesh in Rafe’s bed, Lacey reassured herself with a quick, searching look around the room that she was really alone. Trying to marshal her thoughts into order at the moment was beyond her. She wondered if she had dreamed his last words
, then pushed the thought aside. She was afraid that they were true.
Moving gingerly to the edge of the bed, she listened for any sound that would reveal his presence nearby. Silence greeted her.
This time she didn’t care that he had left her. She rose, then walked slowly to the connecting door between their rooms. The heat of the wood stove, the steam rising from the deep-sided pan on top of it, made her assume that Rafe had already bathed and left this for her. It was a habit newly formed when they were lovers. And now? a small voice nagged. What are you now?
“Grateful,” she murmured, trailing the tips of her fingers through the warm water in the tub. Using a towel, she carefully lifted the pan of steaming water and poured it in. The thought of soaking away some of the aches of her body filled her mind completely. No sooner had she blissfully closed her eyes and leaned back did Rafe’s voice behind her make her abruptly sit up.
Chapter 17
“I was coming in to wake you, bright eyes. You’d better hurry with that bath. We don’t have much time.”
Glancing behind her, Lacey noticed the tray he held. The sight of eggs, hot biscuits dripping with butter and honey, along with a steaming cup of coffee made her mouth water. She was instantly reminded that she had never eaten yesterday. Rafe’s knowing male laugh brought her gaze up to his face. She ignored the appreciative stare that roved over her body.
“If that’s for me,” she snapped, “just put it down. I fully intend to soak for hours.”
Rafe didn’t answer. He handed her a biscuit and then the coffee, waiting while she greedily ate it. Her lips were slightly swollen, and a wild stab of desire caught him when she parted them to sip the coffee between delicate bites.
“You didn’t forget what today is, did you, princess?”
Frowning under his steady regard, Lacey handed him the cup and slid lower into the water. He set the tray down on the floor, out of her reach, and sat down on the stool next to the tub. He caught her eyeing the platter of fluffy eggs, knew they tempted her, and began, over her protests, to feed her. His eyes grew more somber as she steadily avoided meeting his gaze until she was done.
Western Winds Page 20