by Anne Stuart
“I’ll go back and join the sisters,” she said, trying to ignore the fluttering in the base of her stomach, the faint, clenching feeling between her breasts. “They’ve gone to a convent in Brazil. When we arrive in the States I can get in touch with the nearest diocese and they’ll help me. That is, if you’re still willing to take me back.”
“If I wasn’t?” The words were even, suggesting nothing other than mild curiosity.
“Then I’d find my way there myself.”
“I’ll get you there,” he said, his voice deep and unreadable. “Once we get the baby to his grandparents I’ll make sure you end up where you should be.”
That promise should have comforted her. For some reason it didn’t. She let out her pent-up breath, trying to will herself to relax against him. It wasn’t that she couldn’t get comfortable. Reilly’s body fit hers all too well.
“Just tell me one more thing, Carlie,” he murmured against the side of her face. “You’ve been in the convent for nine years. You’re how old—twenty-three? Twenty-four?”
“Twenty-six,” she said.
“Then how come in all that time you haven’t taken your final vows? That’s what you said, isn’t it? You’re still an apprentice nun, right? How come you didn’t graduate?” he drawled.
“I’m going to. As soon as I join up with the others,” she said firmly
“How come you haven’t already?”
She actually considered lying, astonishingly enough. The only lies she’d told so far had been to protect a helpless infant, not herself. If she were to lie now, to him, it would only be for her own selfish reasons, and there was no way she could justify it.
“Reverend Mother Ignacia didn’t think I was ready,” she muttered, hoping he’d leave it at that.
Somehow his arm had gotten underneath her, and his hand curved around her waist, dangerously close to her breast. He wasn’t touching her, but she could feel the heat and the weight of his hand on her rib cage, near her racing heart.
“Why weren’t you ready?”
“She wasn’t certain if I had a calling.”
“Are you certain?” he murmured, his mouth against her earlobe.
She was having a little trouble breathing. “Absolutely,” she said in a strangled voice, waiting for his mouth to move, to settle against hers. Waiting for the dangerously sweet oblivion he could bring her, so easily.
He didn’t move. For a moment time seemed to stand still. And then his hand fell away, to rest on her hip, and his body relaxed against hers. “It’s always nice to be sure about what you want in life,” he said in a deliberately neutral tone of voice.
She felt his withdrawal, even as his hand claimed her hip. He was letting her go, she realized with surprise and relief. And something that almost felt like desolation.
It shouldn’t have surprised her. He’d slept with her, stripped her clothes halfway off her, kissed her, caressed her, and yet she still remained as virginal as the day she was born. He’d told her he simply wanted to relax her into sleep last night, and that’s exactly what he’d done. He hadn’t seemed the slightest bit interested in …in making love to her, any more than he did right now.
He probably simply didn’t find her attractive. Or if he had, finding out she was a nun put an end to his roving lust, and for that she could thank God. Couldn’t she?
“Reilly?”
“Yeah?”
“How’d you find out I was a nun?”
“Dutchy told me. He remembered where he’d seen you before. It didn’t seem to bother him that he’d almost raped a nun, and I guess he thought I’d think it was pretty funny. I didn’t.”
“But you didn’t kill him.”
“Carlie...” His voice carried a very definite warning.
“I’m not asking,” she said hastily.
“I wanted to kill him,” he said. “I was tempted. But I decided I’d seen enough killing to last me.”
“Why did you want to kill him? Why then?”
“It was a question of shooting the messenger. I didn’t like what he had to tell me. I didn’t want to hear you were a nun when I’d just done my level best to despoil you.”
She couldn’t help it—she smiled against his shoulder. “That couldn’t have been your best effort,” she said, nestling closer to him, her hips up against his. He seemed a mass of tight, hard bulges and muscles, and she tried to imagine the male anatomy with her limited knowledge. “I can’t imagine you not succeeding at anything you set your mind to, and I’m only slightly despoiled.”
“Carlie.” His voice was low, warning. “Watch it.”
She felt safe, secure. He didn’t want her, he wouldn’t hurt her, he’d take her back to the convent and this would all be a wild dream. “Watch what?” she murmured, rubbing her face against the smooth heat of his skin.
He moved so fast the hammock swung wildly as he pulled her underneath him, pushing between her legs so that she cradled him against her hips. He was hard, pulsing, alive.
“There’s a limit, Sister Maria Carlos,” he said in a tight voice, a deliberate reminder to both of them. “I’m a man, with a man’s body and a man’s needs, and if you push me you’ll find out just what that involves.”
She stared up at him in surprise. “Don’t be ridiculous, Reilly. You don’t really want me. You could have had me at any time when you thought I was Caterina, and you didn’t. You...”
Her voice trailed off as he began to curse. She didn’t even understand half the things he was saying, but she knew enough to know they were vile and heartfelt.
“I don’t want you?” he muttered, half to himself. He took her hand in his, dragging it down between their bodies, pushing it against the straining zipper of his jeans. He was rigid, pulsing beneath her hand, and he held her there, forcibly. “If I don’t want you, what the hell do you think that is?”
She looked up at him. “I’ve been in a convent since I was seventeen,” she said quite frankly. “I don’t know.”
He froze as the simple truth of her words penetrated. And then he cursed again, but this time the words were directed at himself, as he released her hand from his iron grip.
She didn’t move it. He felt strange to her fingers, hard and mesmerizing beneath the thick denim and the heavy zipper, and she traced her fingertips against the length of him, curious.
He yanked her hand away, shoving it against the hammock, and the look in his face as he loomed over her was full of fury and something else she wasn’t ready to comprehend. “That’s an erection, Sister Maria Carlos. It means I want you, so badly that it’s tearing me apart. It also means I’m not quite the bad guy I like to think I am, because I’m not going to take you. I’m going to send you back to the Reverend Mother in the exact same shape I got you. If you want to experiment with sex you’ll have to find someone else to cooperate.”
“I don’t want to experiment with sex,” she said in a muffled voice, aware of the deep color flooding her face. Aware that she wanted to reach down and touch him again through the thick material. She kept her hands to herself.
“Just as well. Virgins are a bore, and a hammock’s for the more advanced,” he drawled, his fury seemingly gone. A mask of cynicism had fallen over his face.
“What makes you think I’m a virgin?” she said hotly.
“It’s a fairly simple deduction. If the soldiers who wiped out that village had found you, you wouldn’t be alive. Since you’ve been in a convent since you were seventeen and you’ve never even heard of an erection, I imagine you’re probably the oldest living virgin left in San Pablo. Am I right?”
“You’re a bastard.”
“We’ve already agreed on that. Are you a virgin?”
“Yes, damn it.”
“I don’t know, Sister Maria Carlos. If your language keeps going the way it has been, the Reverend Mother might not let you back into your safe little hiding place.”
Safe little hiding place. That was exactly what Mother Ignacia had told her.
She was hiding from life.
She tried to pull away, but he held her tight, his long fingers wrapped around her wrists. “I’m going upstairs to bed,” she said furiously.
“No, you’re not. You’re staying right here, with me. We’ll sleep in peaceful, celibate bliss,” he snapped.
“Why?”
“Let’s just say I believe in suffering the torments of the damned,” he replied, shoving her face against his shoulder.
She lay there fuming. She lay there plotting revenge, escape, anything she could think of. She lay there tucked against his big, strong body, his smooth skin, and she wanted to cry.
Somewhere in the distance she could hear the sound of gunfire. Far enough away not to be a danger. The sky was growing light—they must have been arguing for hours. She closed her eyes, unutterably weary and sick of the battle. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her hair. The soft brush of his lips against her temple, but she knew it had to be her imagination. Reilly wouldn’t want to kiss her. He wanted to get rid of her, just as much as she wanted to get away from him. Didn’t she?
She sighed, letting her lips drift against the warm column of his throat, feeling his pulse beneath her mouth. Heavy, strong, hypnotic. She wanted to stay like this forever, safe in his arms, listening to the steady beat of his heart. As long as he held her, she was safe.
He’d been too hard on her, and he knew it, Reilly thought as he felt her relax into a dreamless sleep. She’d been through so much in the past few days—it was no wonder she was confused. It wasn’t her fault that her infuriating combination of unawakened sexuality and courage ignited some impossible longings deep inside him.
It was sex, pure and simple, he tried to tell himself. He wanted to get between her legs, and knowing she was forbidden made him want her even more.
He wasn’t going to have her, that one thing was certain. He could probably talk her into it—she was vulnerable, she was grateful when she wasn’t fighting him, and she was attracted to him, whether she knew it or not.
He could have her, and he’d be damned if he did.
Literally.
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
* * *
The sound of the noisy engine dragged Carlie from her sound sleep, and she awoke, startled, alone, swinging back and forth in the old hammock.
It was daylight, and Reilly had left her. It was only to be expected. By tonight they’d be out of the country, perhaps even out of each other’s company. Ready to go their separate ways.
She scrambled out of the hammock, wincing as her bare feet landed on the rough pine flooring, and leaned over the railing to look at the vehicle that had just driven up. The old truck had seen better days. Better decades, Carlie thought as Simeon jumped down from the driver’s seat. It took three attempts to get the driver’s door shut, and the passenger side was held together with chicken wire.
“What do you think?” Simeon surveyed the decrepit old truck with a misplaced satisfaction.
“This will take us to the airfield?” she asked doubtfully. “There doesn’t look like room for the three of us.”
“There isn’t,” Reilly said, appearing in the doorway of the ramshackle house. He was shirtless, with a day’s growth of beard on his jaw, and he held the baby against him with a natural grace. Timothy was awake, looking up at him out of those somber brown eyes, waving one tiny fist. “You and the kid are riding in back.”
“Without a baby carrier and a seat belt? No,” she protested, moving to take the baby from him.
Reilly made no move to relinquish him into her waiting arms. “Listen, angel, Morales and his men are between us and the deserted village where I left the plane. You’re more likely to get a bullet in your brain if you sit up front with me, and then what the hell good would a seat belt do? You’ll be hidden down behind some boxes, and I won’t need to worry about anyone but me being a sitting target if we have to make a run for it.”
“Are we going to run into them?”
“God knows. I don’t. So far we’ve been fairly lucky, but sooner or later our luck is going to run out.”
She reached out again. “I’ll take the baby.”
“No, you won’t. He and I are getting acquainted.”
She dropped her hands, tucking them around her body, feeling oddly bereft. They made a cozy picture, the big, strong man and the little baby, both shirtless, both male, both gorgeous. A family picture, and she was excluded, on the outside, looking in.
It was her choice, she reminded herself. Her destiny. She’d have to relinquish both of them soon enough—she may as well get used to it.
“Fine,” she said with a bright, false smile.’ ‘I’ll get the rest of our things from the room.”
“I already brought them down while you were sleeping,” he said brusquely. “The baby’s fed and changed, and everything’s set to go. As soon as you’re ready we can take off.”
She squashed down the feeling of guilt that accompanied her odd sense of bereavement. “All right,” she said in a deceptively tranquil voice. “Obviously you can manage perfectly well without me.”
“I don’t see that we’re going to have much choice in the matter.”
“Children, children,” Simeon said smoothly. “There’s no need to squabble. Let me get you some of my best coffee, Carlie, while Reilly plays make-believe daddy. Maybe it’ll convince him that marriage and children aren’t such a dismal prospect.”
“They’re not a dismal prospect,” Reilly said, moving out onto the porch in the early-morning breeze and settling into the hammock with Timothy clasped safely against his chest. “They’re just not for me.”
Simeon’s bearded face creased in a smile. “So you say. We’ll see whether it ends up that way.”
She followed Simeon into the marginally cooler interior of the house, determined not to look behind her. To notice that there would have been room for her on that hammock as well, to curl up next to Reilly and the baby. Not for her, she reminded herself sternly.
“So how do you like your coffee, Carlie?” Simeon asked, handing her a mug. “Black as night, sweet as sin, strong as love?”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she said faintly, taking a deep, grateful gulp of the brew.
“No, I imagine you haven’t,” Simeon agreed innocently.
Carlie glanced up at him. “He told you.”
“That you were a nun? Yes. I think he wanted to make sure I behaved myself. Not that Reilly seems to be making much of an effort,” he added easily, lowering his impressive bulk to a rickety-looking chair.
“He doesn’t like me.”
Simeon frowned. “You don’t believe that any more than I do, child. He may not approve of your life choices, but the problem is he likes you far too much. I never thought I’d see Reilly succumb.”
“Succumb to what?” she said, curiosity getting the better of her wariness.
“To the fair sex. To family values. To love, child.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” she snapped.
“I’ve known Reilly for more than ten years. I’ve seen him with lovers and enemies, friends and acquaintances, and during all that time I’ve never seen him look at a woman the way he looks at you. For what it’s worth, I think it scares the hell out of him.”
Carlie drained her coffee, failing to savor it. “I think,” she said carefully, politely, “that you’ve been out here a little too long.”
“Denial is not just a river in Egypt.”
“I beg your pardon?” she said, mystified.
“That’s right, he said you’ve been immured in a convent for the last decade. It means, child, that you’re lying to me, but more important, you’re lying to yourself.” He waved an airy hand. “Go ahead, though. I won’t argue with you. It’s between you and Reilly. When the time comes for you to go back to your sisterhood, will you go? Or will you stay with Reilly and the child?”
“You don’t understand,” she said miserably. “We’ll all go ou
r separate ways, alone. Timothy will go to live with his grandparents, Reilly will go back to wherever he comes from, and I’ll join the sisters.”
“Montana,” Simeon said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Reilly lives on a mountaintop in Montana in a house he built himself. He lives alone.”
“He probably prefers it that way.”
“So he says.”
“And I’ll be very happy to be back with the sisters,” she said firmly.
“And you’re sure that’s what you really want?”
There was amazing kindness in Simeon’s eyes, and she wanted to tell him the troth. She wanted to put her head in his lap and weep out her confusion and doubt. The frightening truth of her feelings for Reilly, feelings she didn’t want to have. The convent no longer felt like home to her. But if it wasn’t, then what home did she have?
Reilly had appeared in the door behind her, silent, but his shadow blocked out the early-morning sunlight. “It’s what I really want,” she said firmly.
Adding another lie to her list of sins.
* * *
The problem was, Reilly thought as he pulled away from Simeon’s place, that she didn’t look like a nun. Part of the problem was Caterina Morrissey’s clothes. Those skimpy shorts, exposing a surprising length of leg for such a small creature, the lack of bra beneath the T-shirts, the short-cropped hair and the defiant eyes added up to a potent, tempting package of womanhood. If she was dressed in veils, with her eyes modestly downcast and her language demure, he could probably keep himself in line. But every time he glanced at her, at her pale mouth and wary eyes, her lean, luscious body, he wanted her, and all his common sense and natural wariness flew out the window.
At least he didn’t need to glance at her now. She was comfortably settled in the back of the truck. Timothy lay strapped in a makeshift bassinet, and there were several layers of blankets protecting her from the rusted floor of the old vehicle. It wasn’t the safest arrangement, but safety was a relative issue in San Pablo these days. He just needed to get them through enemy lines, back up into the deserted mountain village where he’d left the plane, and they’d be home free.