“Oh,” she whispered softly, and her lips came against his throat as she held him tight. She thought of his bare chest, how the ripple of muscle fascinated and drew her, and she tugged on his buttons. She was not as deft and tore off a button.
She pulled away in horror, gasping out an apology, amazed that she could have wanted anyone with so great an abandon that she would have ripped clothing. She opened her mouth to speak, but she was quickly back in his arms. “It’s the best button I’ve ever lost!” he assured her, laughing. But the laughter was tempered by fire. It was throaty and husky, and entered inside her just like his touch, making her hunger, making her yearn.
He pulled away from her for a second to strip away his own shirt. He crushed her back against him and just held her there. Together they knelt on the bed, and his passion took flight again. His hands scorched endless trails over her back, bringing them together hip to hip. Ashley bent her head, nipping his shoulders, trailing her tongue over the smoothness of his flesh. Her fingertips brushed and kneaded him, and her lips and teeth and tongue followed. She tentatively set her teeth over the hard brown knot of his nipple, moving her tongue around it. She grazed her fingers low over his belly and felt him shudder, heard his ardent groan.
He caught her hair and held her face away, searching out her eyes. “You are like an emerald. Sparkling, dazzling green fire. Hard to touch, hard to hold, tempting beyond all measure. God, what you do to me….”
He kissed her again. While their lips met he found her hand and brought it against him. She almost recoiled, startled by the fierce pulse of his arousal. Then everything about him came to her in a rush. She felt the tempest of his breath, so ragged, and she felt the ferocious thunder of his heart, the burning constriction of his body. His palms, calloused and hard and masculine, were demanding, yet so tender as they closed over the fullness of her breasts.
Suddenly he broke away from her lips with a cry that rocked the length of her, saturating her with a liquid shimmer of deep desire. He cradled her breast with his hand and took the hardened peak into his mouth, to lave it with his tongue, tease it with his teeth, to suckle it. She couldn’t believe his touch on her upper body affected her whole length, and she tugged on his hair, hardly aware that what she begged him for was mercy. He released her at last, but only to caress and suckle and tease her other breast until she could kneel no more, until she fell against him, desperate for more of him, yet not at all sure that she could endure more of his fierce lovemaking.
She was not about to be denied. He laid her down upon the pillow and shed his jeans. Breathing hard, she watched him and tried to rise when he came to her. He wouldn’t allow her to do so. He kissed her lips and then trailed his tongue down her body, between her breasts, over her ribs. He paused, twisting her, to kiss the length of her spine. She tried again to reach for him, to bring herself against him, but he held her still.
He found the snap on the cutoff jeans she wore and began to tug them down her hips. He put his lips on her waistline and belly, and when the cutoffs were finally off, he parted her thighs. The tip of his tongue teased her thighs until it came between them. Then he delved into her with leisure and determination, finding the tiny button that coursed out its hunger and ecstasy and need to all of her—to her blood, her limbs, her heart…
The world blackened around her. Life before this night faded, and all she knew was the sweet blinding urgency, and then the shattering, volatile storm of rapture that broke and cascaded throughout her. She screamed, shaking and trembling, and barely knew that she had done so. Blackness did come. She died, she came back to life, and then discovered the tension in his face and the sheer masculine pleasure and triumph in his eyes as he crawled over her. Embarrassment racked her and she stared at him in dismay, trying to lower her eyes as if she could hide. He laughed—deep, rich, throaty—and found her lips and kissed her hard. Slowly he laid the length of his body over hers. She felt his sex, huge and pulsing and unappeased, against her thighs, and then she felt his movement and she forgot to be embarrassed. She melted to his touch. He sank into her, slowly and completely, while looking into her eyes once again. When he was fully inside her, she felt a touch, as if it were deep down inside her womb, and it awoke every hunger within her again. She opened her mouth, but no sound came. She wetted her dry lips, and his came down upon them again and he locked his arms around her.
All hell broke loose within him.
She felt as if she rode a tempest, rode the wind, rode the wild splendor of the earth itself, and it was wonderful. He was fury itself, liquid motion. When she thought that she could take no more, he held himself away from her and moved slowly…until she became the tempest, arching against him, setting her own rhythm. Then he ceased to tease and caught hold of her desperate flight, smoothing it into a sensual, sweet rhythm once more. It went on and on until she reached the final peak and clasped it tightly. She closed her eyes, and the stars exploded before her. Emerald stars, dozens of them, dazzling in the darkness all around her, settling her down, within the damp enclosure of his arms.
They lay there in silence for a long while. The candle flickered against the walls, and its glow grew smaller and smaller. Ashley closed her eyes. She must have halfway dozed, for she didn’t so much awaken but rather became aware of him again. His fingers moved up and down her back, along her spine. Then his hands slid over her buttocks and caught hold of her hips and pulled her taut against him. He slipped inside her. Her breath came hot against his earlobe, and his whisper encouraged her to take flight along with him again.
When it was over they didn’t break apart. His arm remained around her and her back lay flush against his chest. He stroked her arm softly and she didn’t sleep. She heard his whisper.
“You’re addictive,” he told her.
“Am I?” she whispered.
“Um. Like caviar. I like caviar. I like it a lot.”
She laughed softly. “First I was like an emerald. Now I’ve been reduced to fish eggs.”
He chuckled and pulled her around to face him. She buried her head against his chest, loving the smoothness of his flesh, the tautness of the muscles there. She suddenly wished that there was no world other than their own, that the storm had taken away all roads forever, and that she could stay just where she was for eternity.
With a man who barely liked her, she reminded herself. But that was hard to believe at the moment. His long fingers moved tenderly through her hair, and she couldn’t accept the fact that he hadn’t come to care for her if only a little bit. She blessed the storm that had brought them together.
“It’s almost daylight,” he said.
“Is it?”
“Umm. I should have taken the shutters up yesterday. There was no reason to leave them down.” She felt him grimace. “They’re automatic. A touch of a button and they slide up.”
“Umm,” she murmured, content to be where she was.
“Did you sleep at all?” he asked her.
“Very well, except someone woke me up.”
“Sorry.”
“Please, don’t be. It’s quite all right.”
“Good, because I’m really not sorry, not in the least.” He was silent for a moment, then he sighed. “I’ll be able to get you out of here either today or tomorrow, I’m sure.”
Ashley didn’t say anything. Her heart seemed to slam painfully against her chest. She couldn’t believe that she really didn’t want to go. Going meant returning to everything that she loved. The Met and the theaters and the massive buildings and Central Park in autumn. Macy’s chocolate chip cookies. Her and Tara’s cozy offices by Rockefeller Plaza. Ice skating…
Staying meant this man, the strength and security of his arms.
Except, of course, that he didn’t want her to stay. He wanted her out. He liked his privacy and his quiet world. She was an intruder, even if she could cook and be entertaining in bed.
She pulled away from him, biting her lower lip as she stared up at the ceiling. She felt
him prop up an elbow to watch her, but she didn’t look his way.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her.
“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head.
“You’re anxious to leave, I take it.”
“That’s not what I was thinking. Not at all.”
“Then what?”
“Then what?” she repeated, and hesitated. Then she rolled over to look at him. The candlelight was not quite gone. “I was just thinking how strange things are, the way that they happen.”
“Meaning?”
“This. The storm. Everything that happened. Being here. No matter what, I’ll never regret it.” She didn’t like the way that he was looking at her. She wondered what she had said wrong.
“You’ll never regret it? It what? You, me, the two of us? Making love? What are you talking about?”
“Do you have to get so particular!” Ashley exploded. “I—I meant us. I meant you. Everything I’ve learned from you and about you. I love the book about the Seminoles. I love what it says about you as a man. And I’m talking about us, too. Making love, or having sex, whichever the hell it is with you!”
“Oh,” he said coolly. “I passed muster then, I take it?”
“Stop it!” she lashed out. It was ridiculous. She was going to start crying any second. No, she would not. Never in front of him. “It was wonderful. You were wonderful—”
“Well, I’m so glad!” he muttered, shooting up from the bed with fury. He reached for his jeans, and stepped into them as he continued to speak with a controlled wrath. “Wonderful, huh? Maybe I should be really grateful for the description. Maybe I’ll have a whole flock of little socialites down here to try out the goods, huh? What is it with you? Try out an Indian, ye old noble savage, then fly down to Tijuana and try out a Mexican?”
Furious, Ashley stared at him, speechless for a moment. Then she jumped up, screamed something completely savage and came tearing around the end of the bed. She did so with a vigor and vehemence that made him wary but she didn’t pelt him. She stopped just a foot before him. “You bastard! You stupid, egotistical, self-centered, neurotic, lousy bastard! Noble savage! There isn’t a single thing noble about you, savage or otherwise!” She slapped him across the face as hard as she could.
Then she nearly cringed. Anger unlike anything she had ever seen leaped into his eyes. They glittered like knives. She prayed that he wouldn’t strike back. She was frightened and was sure that she would scream and cry and…and either run or beg for mercy. No! She couldn’t, she couldn’t.
But if he took one step toward her, she probably would.
He did not. He didn’t touch her, and he didn’t say a word. He stepped around her and left the room. She didn’t hear his footsteps as he strode down the hall. She did hear the front door open and slam with a terrible vengeance.
Ashley sank on the bed. She could still feel her palm stinging from the slap. He was gone, and she allowed hot tears to well in her eyes.
Thank God she would be out of here soon.
Swiftly, almost desperately, she raced into the bathroom. There wasn’t much light, or hot water, but she didn’t care. She jerked on the shower and stood beneath the water, which felt no colder than her heart. She picked up the soap and scrubbed herself furiously, not so much to remove any traces of their lovemaking, but because it seemed that if she tried hard enough, she could scrub him out of her mind and from under her skin.
When she was finished and shivering, her teeth chattering, she toweled herself dry with great fury. She was still seething. No, she wasn’t seething—she was miserable. If it were in her power, she would stomp out the front door alone and find whatever help she could.
If she wasn’t able to leave soon, she would do just that. She would run out again, reckless and heedless, just to get away from him.
She came back into the bedroom and started to straighten the sheets and the bed with a vengeance. Then she paused.
There was someone or something behind her. She didn’t know how she knew, whether she had heard something or just sensed something. But it was there, in the doorway.
Eric, she thought. He had come back. He was either going to say something curt or cruel, or he was going to break down and apologize. Grudgingly she admitted that he was capable of a very good apology. Maybe he thought that she was the one who should be apologizing. She had actually struck him, and he had leashed his temper fairly well. She didn’t owe him an apology, not after the awful things that he had said.
No, he had come back to tell her that he was sorry. Well, she wasn’t forgiving him. Not this time.
But he wouldn’t say anything. He would stay there in perfect unnerving silence until she turned around and acknowledged him.
She dropped the pillow she had been holding and spun to face him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Don’t ask me to be sorry, Hawk, because I’m not—”
Her eyes widened with horror. It wasn’t Eric standing in the doorway. It wasn’t even a man.
It was a cat. A huge cat. A huge, tawny cougar—a mountain lion. It looked at Ashley, then it opened its mouth and gave an awful screech, displaying enormous curved teeth.
She moistened her lips, opened her mouth and stood perfectly still. Don’t move, stare the creature down! she thought. But it wasn’t courage holding her still—she was simply paralyzed with fear.
Then the huge cat moved. A lot like Eric. Step by step, massive paw after massive paw, the cat began to move. Big eyes, seemingly rimmed in black, surveyed her.
As if she were prey.
The cat stepped toward her. And then began to run for the bed, leaping toward it.
At last Ashley’s scream tore from her throat.
She screamed and screamed again.
Because the giant cat was coming straight for her.
CHAPTER 6
“Ashley!”
Eric burst into the room. For a second he stood in the doorway, searching out the danger. Then he made a flying leap, landed on the big cat and wrestled with it on the bed. Ashley, terrified and backed against the wall, closed her eyes. The big cat growled in fury. Eric yelled something, but she didn’t understand his words. She remained flat against the wall, trembling.
Then she realized that the cat and man were off the bed and moving into the hallway. Eric slammed the bedroom door behind him, and after a while she heard the front door slam, too. She staggered over to the bed and sat down. She realized that he might get hurt. The great cat could scratch him or bite him or mangle his limbs. And there would be no way to reach help.
“Eric!” She leaped up and hurried to the door, flinging it open. He was already standing there. She threw herself into his arms with a tremendous burst of happiness and relief. “Oh, you’re all right! I was so afraid of what that awful cougar—”
“Panther. It’s a Florida panther. On the endangered species list,” he said.
“Who cares!” she gasped. Her cheek lay against his shirt, her arms wound tightly around his waist. His hands fell on her shoulders slowly, then he pulled her close. “You could have been hurt! Oh, Eric, I was so desperate, and you came so quickly when I screamed, and you might have been torn to bits. Just torn to bits.”
“Ashley, I was never in any danger—”
“Eric, thank you. Really.”
“Ashley, honestly—” Eric broke off, mesmerized by the liquid green eyes that stared up into his. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her the truth—that the cat’s name was Baby, and that Baby was a pet. Wendy’s, Brad’s and his. Like any cat, Baby was independent. She was a bright creature, too, affectionate and very loving. She could be trusted with his cousins’ little children. She was also a good ally. He and Brad had worked with Baby, and she could be commanded to attack, to run and leap on the enemy and hold him down. She could also be told to get away.
She hadn’t threatened Ashley. Baby had just been curious. She wasn’t accustomed to finding strangers in Eric’s house.
He meant to say all of
that to Ashley. He meant to explain. It was just that harsh words rose between them so easily. His fault, he thought. He didn’t want to want her, but he did. He didn’t want to care that she was a dazzling angel cast down from the heaven of the north, and that she would return to her glittering high palaces in no time at all. She was just a touch of green fire that lit up the dark swamp. Or maybe his soul, he didn’t know. She was a red-haired angel, a borrowed angel.
He should really tell her the truth. He should explain….
It was just that she was shivering so violently in his arms. And she had that look in her eyes, as if she forgave him for all things. Then there was the feel of her skin as he held her, and the soft scent of soap emanating from her body mixed with everything so feminine and magical about her. Her hair fell against him, soft as a silken web, radiant as a blaze.
Words died on his lips. He had just left her. He had to be with her again. He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. Then he kissed away the dampness on her cheeks. His lips fell on her throat where it was arched to him. Her breasts were crushed against him and despite the clothing lying between them he could feel the hardness of her nipples and the fullness of her breasts. He groaned because he was lost.
He swept her up into his arms and brought her to the bed. He couldn’t get enough of the touch of her, or of the beauty of her eyes. She was only borrowed, he reminded himself time and time again, but that made it harder for him, because he had to touch her more thoroughly to remember her. He had to lose himself within her completely, because the chance might not come again.
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