Dark Paradise (36 page)

swearing, tumbling over each other.

They came to rest in a spot where the ground flattened out just before a

huge moss-covered boulder. Marilee was on the bottom. J.D. rose up over

her, the heels of his hands digging into the soft ground on either side

of her head.

She stared up at him, her deep clear blue eyes unfocused until she

blinked hard to clear away the fog.

There were twigs and leaves stuck in her hair and a bruise darkening on

her cheek. Her lips were parted, her breath puffing in and out. Her legs

were tangled with his, and her feminine mound arched invitingly against

his swelling manhood. The need that had gripped J.D. in its talons for

days now tightened its hold ruthlessly.

Instantly the air around them seemed suddenly hotter, thicker, redolent

with the ripe, fertile scents of the forest.

Their gazes locked and held. J.D. moved slightly, experimentally,

against her. Her breath caught. Her eyes widened. She made no move to

protest.

He wanted her. Damn, but he wanted her!
 
He was hard and throbbing with

it. Aching with it. Burning with it.

"You make me so damn mad, Marilee," he whispered. Mad with need of her.

Every other emotion he had felt toward her - the anger, the frustration,

the kinder feelings he wouldn't name - channeled themselves into the

desire, making it burn hotter, brighter. It didn't matter that she was

wrong for him. Nothing mattered except the need. "You make me want you,"

he growled.

Marilee started to deny the charge but stopped herself.

She could feel his erection against her and didn't bother to tell

herself she didn't want him. She did. She wanted him with every fiber of

her being. The need burst through her, radiating out from the hard fist

of desire in the core of her, astonishing her. She wasn't the sort to

live by her hormones. She didn't tumble into bed with just any man.

And this man made her as angry as he made her hot. He was stubborn,

arrogant, high-handed, hard-headed. She remembered thinking that the

attraction that flared between the two of them was good for nothing but

wild, hot, mind-numbing sex.

At the moment she could not for the life of her see what was so bad

about that.

"I don't want you here," he murmured, lowering himself onto her. He

leaned on one elbow and with his other hand stroked the tangled strands

of hair back from her face. His breath came harder at the feel of her

breasts against his chest. "I don't want you here, but I want you so bad

I can't stand it. I want you now. Right now. You gonna try to stop me

this time, Marilee?"

It wasn't a challenge, it was her last chance. The moment shimmered

between them, quivered with tension.

J.D. stared down into her eyes, waiting. She was too aware of his

arousal, too aware of her own. The sensitive flesh between her legs was

pounding with need, aching for the feel of him, and he was more than

ready to comply. Would she try to stop him?
 
The implication was that

she may not be able to. Did she want to?

Slowly she shook her head.

He lowered his mouth to hers, sealing their fate. The instant their lips

touched, the second his tongue slid against hers, all sanity was lost,

vaporized by the heat that flared between them. He kissed her roughly,

wildly, possessively. She locked her hands around the back of his head

and kissed him back with equal abandon.

They tore at their clothes. The snaps of his work shirt pulled apart and

her small, cool hands were on his chest, combing through the thicket of

dark hair. Her fingers ran down over the taut muscles of his belly and

back. He pulled her sweatshirt and T-shirt off in one tangle, barely

breaking the kiss, and blindly flung the knotted mess aside into a

huckleberry bush. Then her breasts were naked against him, and whatever

scrap of reason he might have had left was incinerated.

Marilee gasped at the touch of his body against hers. He was fever hot.

Her every nerve ending was vibrating, quivering at the slightest

contact. She was aware of each chest hair that brushed across her

nipples. She wanted to scream at the sensations and beg for more in the

same breath. They kissed and groped, rolling around on their little

plateau of ground, oblivious of the mud, the leaves, the twigs; blind to

everything but passion.

They came up on their knees and J.D. bent her back over his arm and

fastened his mouth on her breast, flicking his tongue against her

nipple, then sucking hard, wringing wild cries from her. Marilee's

fingers tangled with his at the waist of her jeans, fumbling with the

button, wrestling the zipper down.

Pants and panties were shoved out of the way. Her legs parted and his

big hand found her most tender flesh. Hot. Wet. Aching for his touch. He

parted the delicate folds with his callused fingertips and she arched

against him, inviting him, begging him. He dipped into the warm honey of

her woman's body, rubbed and stroked and teased. As he plunged his

tongue deep into her mouth again and again, he tormented her with

feather touches at the mouth of her femininity.

Marilee twisted and bucked against him, mindless with need, desperate

for the feel of him inside her. She worked a hand between their bodies

and held him, pulling on him, rubbing him through the soft fabric of his

old jeans, wringing a deep moan up from the depths of his chest.

Dragging his mouth down to her breasts again, he kissed her and nipped

her as he tore his belt loose and struggled to free himself. Marilee

pushed him back, sinking to her knees in the soft ground, kissing his

chest. Eager to please and torture him as he had her, she found the

brown button of his flat male nipple and captured it lightly between her

teeth, rubbing the tip of her tongue back and forth across it. She

shoved his hands aside and with the fly of his jeans, wrenching the

zipper setting his bulging erection free. His white cotton briefs were

tugged down quickly, and he was in her hands, as hard and smooth as a

steel rod, hot and heavy and throbbing with life.

J.D.'s control broke at the feel of her fingers closing around him. He

shoved her back down and mounted her, driving fully into her in one

powerful thrust. She called his name and came immediately, powerfully.

J.D. gritted his teeth and hung on as her woman's body tightened

rhythmically, exquisitely around him. Her fingertips dug into his back.

Her wild cries called him to join her in ecstasy. Beyond holding back,

he began to move, pumping in and out of her, reaching deep with every

stroke.

"Wrap your legs around me, Marilee," he commanded, then groaned as she

did so, pulling him deeper still.

Marilee locked her thighs around his hips, her arms around his heaving

ribs, then she tucked her head against his shoulder and hung on for the

ride. She was past identifying individual sensations. There were no

words for the place he was taking her. Paradise had been found in that

first moment of joining, but he was taking her beyond paradise into

uncharted territory at a pace that stole her breath. The heat was

engulfing them. She was on fire with bliss. Every thrust touched a place

inside her no other man had ever managed to find.

The second explosion was even more enormous than the first. Behind her

eyelids everything went white. She heard J.D. groan as he buried himself

deep one last time and came in a hot rush. Then time and space ceased to

exist.

Awareness returned layer by gossamer layer. She was breathing, a chore

that consumed her concentration for several moments. When she thought

she had it mastered, she worked at opening her eyes. Her eyelids seemed

to weigh ten pounds each and required incredible mental stamina to

raise. When the feat was accomplished, she was staring into J.D.'s ear.

He lay heavily on top of her, motionless.

"Are we still alive?" she asked in awe.

He raised himself up slowly. His chest was heaving.

There were bits of dead leaf caught in his chest hair.

Marilee reached up and gently brushed it away, focusing on the task,

putting off the inevitable.

J.D. studied her carefully, taking in her fading blush and hooded eyes.

There was a bruise on her cheek. He couldn't remember whether she had it

before. Her wild mane was snarled and tangled with twigs and crumbs of

earth.

Christ almighty. They were in the middle of the woods, lying naked on a

carpet of wet dead leaves. Around them life on the mountain went on as

usual. A bird
 
called thief! from somewhere in the canopy of branches

above them.

A yellow warbler sang merrily-wee-see-wee-see-wisswiss-u. A red squirrel

darted past them and Zip bounded from between a pair of aspen saplings

and gave chase, gracefully leaping over his master's prone form.

Embarrassment washed through J.D. He never lost control with a woman.

Never. Even as a teenager he managed his lust with an iron fist. It was

a point of honor, part of the pledge he had taken all those years ago.

It rattled him to think he could forget those hard lessons in the time

it took to unzip his jeans.

Marilee was looking up at him now, watching him carefully. Marilee, the

outsider. Marilee, heir to the throne of Lucy MacAdam.

Jesus, Rafferty, what were you thinking?

He moved away from her, jerking his pants up and fumbling with the

zipper. Marilee watched him, a cold, hard lump of dread settling in her

stomach. It occurred to her belatedly that this was what was wrong with

wild, hot, mind-numbing sex. Afterward, when the novocaine of arousal

faded, you were left with whatever pains and problems were there to

begin with. Rafferty didn't want her on his precious mountain. He

couldn't look at her without seeing Lucy and Bryce and everyone else who

was trying to take his homeland away from him.

She sighed and reached for the multicolored ball of fabric that was her

shirt. Untangling the sleeves, she pulled T-shirt and sweatshirt over

her head together, shook her hair and tried to comb her fingers

through it to dislodge the debris.

"Well, it was fun while it lasted," she said dryly.

J.D. shot her a look as he shrugged into his shirt. She was trying to be

tough. She was trying to be as nonchalant about this as Lucy would have

been. But she didn't look tough or unconcerned. She looked fragile. As

if she needed holding. God knew he wasn't the man to offer comfort or

reassurance. He shouldn't have wanted anything more between them than

animosity. That was safest. That was best.

Their gazes caught. Her eyes were clear and huge, like blue glass jewels

set deep beneath her dark brows. Her mouth was a soft, vulnerable bow,

her lips swollen from his kisses. Possessiveness surged through him. He

couldn't seem to stop it. He reached for her, pulled her into his

embrace, his gaze locked on hers.

"If you think this is over, you'd better think again, Marilee."

Marilee blinked at him, breathless at the prospects his words opened up.

"We're not finished?"

"Not by a long shot." He bent his head and nuzzled her cheek, nipped her

throat, her earlobe. He stroked a hand down her back to her bare bottom.

His fingers cupped and kneaded the ripe swell of one buttock. He pulled

her snug against him and growled low in his throat as arousal tightened

again in his groin. "Hell, we just barely took the edge off."

The truck was dealt with. Upon arriving back at Lucy's ranch, Clyde, the

traitorous mule, was dealt with. In the bathtub of the guest room the

mud was dealt with. Then they dealt with each other.

Marilee felt strangely shy with him, considering. The time that had

elapsed had given the reservations a chance to take root. What would

this mean? Where would it lead them?
 
She didn't allow herself to

answer. She wanted to live in the moment. She wanted to put the tangle